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YOUNG    ALASKANS 
IN    THE    FAR    NOPvTH 


Books  by 
EMERSON  HOUGH 

YOUNG   ALASKANS   IN   THE   FAR   NORTH 
THE   YOUNG   ALASKANS 
THE   YOUNG   ALASKANS   ON   THE   TRAIL 
THE   YOUNG  ALASKANS   IN   THE   ROCKIES 


HARPER  &  BROTHERS.    NEW   YORK 
[Ebtabi.tbhf.d  1817] 


u  - 


as  K 


YOUNG  ALASKANS 

IN  THE 

FAR  NORTH 


BY 
EMERSON    HOUGH 

Author  of  "YOUNG  alaskans 

IN  THE  ROCKIES"   ETC. 


ILLUSTRATBD 


HARPER    &   BROTHERS   PUBLISHERS 

NEW    YORK   AND   LONDON 


Young  Alaskans  in  the  Far  North 

Copyright,  191 8,  by  Harper  &  Brothers 
Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  The  Start  for  the  Midnight  Sun i 

II.  The  Scows 12 

III.  The  Great  Brigade 32 

IV.  The  Gran'd  Rapids 51 

V.  White-water  Days 64 

VI.  On  the  Steamboat 79 

VII.  The  Wild  Portage 89 

VIII.  On  the  Mackenzie 112 

IX.  Under  the  Arctic  Circle 132 

X.  Farthest  North 149 

XI.  The  MID^^GHT  Sun 164 

XII.  The  Rat  Portage 176 

XIII.  Down  the  Porcupine       192 

XIV.  At  Fort  Yukon 212 

XV.  The  Fur  Tr-ade 222 

XVI.  Dawson,  the  Golden  City 231 

XVII.  What  Uncle  Dick  Thought 246 


ua:)82^ 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

The  First  Portage — Slave  River.  "The  Scows 
Were  Hauled  Up  the  Steep  Bank  by  Means 
OF  Block  and  Tackle" Frontispuu 

An  Encampment  of  Eskimos  on  the  Beach  at 

Fort   McPhERSON Facing  p.  1 5o 

Husky  Fleet — Fort  McPherson       "       172 

Husky  Dog — Rampart  House "       206 


YOUNG    ALASKANS 
IN    THE    FAR    NORTH 


YOUNG    ALASKANS 
IN    THE    FAR    NORTH 


THE   START  FOR  THE   MIDNIGHT   SUN 

""\  ^  ZELL,  fellows,"  said  Jesse  Wilcox,  the 
V  V  youngest  of  the  three  boys  who 
stood  now  at  the  ragged  railway  station  of 
Athabasca  Landing,  where  they  had  just  dis- 
embarked, "here  we  are  once  more.  For  my 
part,  I'm  ready  to  start  right  now." 

He  spoke  somewhat  pompously  for  a  youth 
no  more  than  fifteen  years  of  age.  John 
Hardy  and  Rob  Mclntyre,  his  two  compan- 
ions, somewhat  older  than  himself,  laughed 
at  him  as  he  sat  now  on  his  pack-bag,  which 
had  just  been  tossed  off  the  baggage-car  of 
the  train  that  had  brought  them  hither. 

"You  might  wait  for  Uncle  Dick,"  said 
John.     "He'd  feel  pretty  bad  if  we  started 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

off  now  for  the  Arctic  Circle  and  didn't  allow 
him  to  come  along!" 

Rob,  the  older  of  the  three,  and  the  one  to 
whom  they  were  all  in  the  habit  of  looking  up 
in  their  wilderness  jonmeyings,  smiled  at 
them  both.  He  was  not  apt  to  talk  very 
much  in  any  case,  and  he  seemed  now  content 
in  these  new  surroundings  to  sit  and  ob- 
serve what  lay  about  him. 

It  was  a  straggling  little  settlement  which 
they  saw,  with  one  long,  broken  street  running 
ihroMgh  the  center.  There  was  a  church 
spire,  to  be  sure,  and  a  square  little  wooden 
building  in  which  some  business  men  had 
started  a  bank  for  the  sake  of  the  coming 
settlers  now  beginning  to  pass  through  for 
the  country  along  the  Peace  River.  There 
were  one  or  two  stores,  as  the  average  new- 
comer would  have  called  them,  though  each 
really  was  the  post  of  one  of  the  fur-trading 
companies  then  occupying  that  country.  Most 
prominent  of  these,  naturally,  was  the  building 
of  the  ancient  Hudson's  Bay  Company. 

A  rude  hotel  with  a  dirty  bar  full  of  carous- 
ing half-breeds  and  rowdy  new-comers  lay 
just  beyond  the  end  of  the  uneven  railroad 
tracks  which  had  been  laid  within  the  month. 
The  surface  of  the  low  hills  running  back  from 
the   Athabasca   River   was   covered   with   a 


THE   START   FOR  THE   MIDNIGHT   SUN 

stunted  growth  of  aspens,  scattered  among 
which  here  and  there  stood  the  cabins  or 
board  houses  of  the  men  who  had  moved 
here  following  the  rush  of  the  last  emigra- 
tion to  the  North.  There  were  a  few 
tents  and  lodges  of  half-breeds  also  scattered 
about. 

"Well,  Uncle  Dick  said  we  would  be  start- 
ing right  away,"  argued  Jesse,  a  trifle  crest- 
fallen. 

"Yes,"  said  Rob,  "but  he  told  me  we 
would  be  lucky  if  'right  away*  meant  inside 
of  a  week.  He  said  the  breeds  always  pow- 
wow around  and  drink  for  a  few  days  before 
they  start  north  with  the  brigade  for  a  long 
trip.  That's  a  custom  they  have.  They  say 
the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  has  more  customs 
than  customers  these  days.  Times  are  chang- 
ing for  the  fur  trade  even  here. 

"Where's  your  map,  John?"  he  added;  and 
John  spread  out  on  the  platform  where  they 
stood  his  own  rude  tracing  of  the  upper  coun- 
try which  he  had  made  by  reference  to  the 
best  government  maps  obtainable.  Their 
imcle  Dick,  engineer  of  this  new  railroad  and 
other  frontier  development  enterprises,  of 
course  had  a  full  supply  of  these  maps,  but 
it  pleased  the  boys  better  to  think  that  they 
made  their  own  maps — as  indeed  they  always 

3 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

had  in  such  earlier  trips  as  those  across  the 
Rockies,  down  the  Peace  River,  in  the  Kadiak 
Island  country,  or  along  the  headwaters  of 
the  Columbia,  where,  as  has  been  told,  they 
had  followed  the  trails  of  the  wilderness  in 
their  adventures  before  this  time. 

They  all  now  bent  over  the  great  sheet  of 
paper,  some  of  which  was  blank  and  marked 
"Unknown." 

"Here  we  are,  right  here,"  said  John,  put- 
ting his  finger  on  the  map.  "Only,  when  this 
map  was  made  there  wasn't  any  railroad. 
They  used  to  come  up  from  Edmondton  a 
himdred  miles  across  the  prairies  and  muskeg 
by  wagon.  A  rotten  bad  journey.  Uncle  Dick 
said." 

"Well,  it  couldn't  have  been  much  worse 
than  the  new  railroad,"  gnmibled  Jesse.  "It 
was  awfully  rough,  and  there  wasn't  any 
place  to  eat." 

"Oh,  don't  condemn  the  new  railroad  too 
much,"  said  Rob.  "You  may  be  glad  to  see 
it  before  you  get  back  from  this  trip.  It's 
going  to  be  the  hardest  one  we  ever  had. 
Uncle  Dick  says  this  is  the  last  great  wilder- 
ness of  the  world,  and  one  less  known  than 
any  other  part  of  the  earth's  surface.  Look 
here!  It's  two  thousand  miles  from  here  to 
the  top  of  the  map,  northwest,  where  the 

4 


THE   START  FOR  THE  MIDNIGHT  SUN 

Mackenzie  comes  in.     We've  got  to  get  there 
if  all  goes  well  with  us." 

John  was  still  tracing  localities  on  the  map 
with  his  forefinger.  "Right  here  is  where  we 
are  now.  If  we  went  the  other  way,  up  the 
Athabasca  instead  of  down,  then  we  would 
come  out  at  the  Peace  River  Landing,  beyond 
Little  Slave  Lake.  That's  where  we  came 
out  when  we  crossed  the  Rockies,  down  the 
Finlay  and  the  Parsnip  and  the  Peace.  I've 
got  that  course  of  ours  all  marked  in  red." 

"But  we  go  the  other  way,"  began  Jesse, 
bending  over  his  shoiilder  and  looking  at  the 
map  now.  "Here's  the  mouth  of  the  Peace 
River,  more  than  four  himdred  miles  north  of 
here,  in  Athabasca  Lake.  Both  these  two 
rivers,  you  might  say,  come  together  there. 
But  look  what  a  long  river  it  is  if  you  call  the 
Athabasca  and  the  Mackenzie  the  same !  And 
look  at  the  big  lakes  up  there  that  we  have 
read  about.  The  Mackenzie  takes  you  right 
into  that  country." 

**  The  Mackenzie !  One  of  the  very  greatest 
rivers  of  the  world,"  said  Rob.  "I've  always 
wanted  to  see  it  some  time.  And  now  we 
shall. 

"I'd  have  liked  to  have  been  along  with  old 
Sir  Alexander  Mackenzie,  the  old  trader  who 
first  explored  it,"  he  added,  thoughtfully. 

5 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

"I  forget  just  what  time  that  was,"  said 
Jesse,  hesitating  and  scratching  his  head. 

"  It  was  in  seventeen  eighty-nine,"  said  Rob, 
always  accurate.  "He  was  only  a  young 
Scotchman  then,  and  they  didn't  call  him  Sir 
Alexander  at  all  imtil  a  good  while  later — 
after  he  had  made  some  of  his  great  dis- 
coveries. He  put  up  the  first  post  on  Lake 
Athabasca — right  here  where  our  river  dis- 
charges— and  he  went  from,  there  to  the 
mouth  of  the  Mackenzie  River  and  back  all 
in  one  season.'*' 

"How  did  they  travel?"  demanded  John. 
"They  must  have  had  nothing  better  than 
canoes." 

"Nothing  else,"  nodded  Rob,  "for  they 
could  have  had  nothing  else.  They  just  had 
birch-bark  canoes,  too,  not  as  good  as  white 
men  take  into  that  coimtry  now.  There  were 
only  six  white  men  in  the  party,  with  a  few 
Indians.  They  left  Athabasca  Lake — here  it 
is  on  the  map — on  June  third,  and  they  got  to 
the  mouth  of  the  great  river  in  forty  days. 
That  certainly  must  have  been  traveling 
pretty  fast!  It  was  more  than  fifteen  hun- 
dred miles — almost  sixteen  hundred.  But 
they  got  back  to  Athabasca  Lake  in  one 
hundred  and  two  days,  covering  over  three 
thousand  miles  down-stream  and  up-stream. 

6 


THE  START  FOR  THE  MIDNIGHT  SUN 

Well,  we've  all  traveled  enough  in  these 
strong  rivers  to  know  how  hard  it  is  to  go 
back  up-stream,  whether  with  the  tracking- 
line  or  the  paddle  or  the  sail.     They  did  it." 

"And  now  we're  here  to  see  what  it  was 
that  they  did,"  said  Jesse,  looking  with  some 
respect  at  the  ragged  line  on  the  map  which 
marked  the  strong  course  of  the  Mackenzie 
River  toward  the  Arctic  Sea. 

"He  must  have  been  quite  a  man,  old 
Alexander  Mackenzie,"  John  added. 

"Yes,"  said  Rob.  "As  you  know,  he  came 
back  to  Athabasca  and  started  up  the  Peace 
River  in  seventeen  ninety- three,  and  was  the 
first  man  to  cross  to  the  Pacific.  We  studied 
him  over  in  there.  But  he  went  up-stream 
there,  and  we  came  down.  That's  much  easier. 
It  will  be  easier  going  down  this  river,  too, 
which  was  his  first  great  exploration  place. 

"Now,"  he  continued,  "we'll  be  going 
down-stream,  as  I  said,  almost  two  thousand 
miles  to  the  mouth  of  that  river.  Uncle 
Dick  says  we'll  be  comfortable  as  princes  all 
the  way.  We'll  have  big  scows  to  travel  in, 
with  everything  fixed  up  fine." 

"Here,"  said  Jesse,  putting  his  finger  on  the 
map  hesitatingly,  "is  the  place  where  it  says 
'rapids.'    Must  be  over  a  hundred  miles  of  it 
on  this  river,  or  even  more." 
2  7 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

"That's  right,  Jess,"  commented  John. 
"We  can't  dodge  those  rapids  yet.  Uncle 
Dick  says  that  the  new  railroad  in  the  North 
may  go  to  Fort  McMurray  at  the  foot  of  this 
great  system  of  the  Athabasca  rapids.  That 
wotild  cut  out  a  lot  of  hard  work.  If  there 
were  a  railroad  up  there,  a  fellow  could  go  to 
the  Arctics  almost  as  easy  as  going  to  New 
York." 

"I'd  rather  go  to  the  Midnight  Sim  now,'* 
said  Rob.  "There's  some  trouble  about  it 
now,  and  there's  some  wilderness  now  be- 
tween here  and  there.  It's  no  fun  to  do  a  thing 
when  it's  too  easy.  I  wouldn't  give  a  cent  to 
go  to  Fort  McPherson,  the  last  post  north, 
by  any  railroad." 

John  was  still  poring  over  the  map,  which 
lay  upon  the  rude  boards  of  the  platform,  and 
he  shook  his  head  now  somewhat  dubiously. 
"Look  where  we'll  have  to  go,"  he  said, 
"and  all  in  three  months.  We  have  to  get 
back  for  school  next  fall." 

"Never  doubt  we  can  do  it,"  said  Rob, 
stoutly.  "If  we  couldn't.  Uncle  Dick  would 
never  try  it.  He's  got  it  all  figured  out,  you 
may  be  sure  of  that,  and  he's  made  all  his  ar- 
rangements with  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company. 
You  forget  they've  been  going  up  into  this 
country  for  a  hundred  years,  and  they  know 


THE  START  FOR  THE  MIDNIGHT  SUN 

how  long  it  takes  and  how  hard  it  is.     They 
know  all  about  how  to  outfit  for  it,  too." 

"The  hardest  place  we'll  have,"  said  John, 
following  his  map  with  his  finger  now  almost 
to  the  upper  edge,  "is  right  here  where  we 
leave  the  Mackenzie  and  start  over  toward  the 
Yukon,  just  south  of  the  Arctic  Ocean.  That's 
a  whizzer,  all  right!  No  railroad  up  in  there, 
and  I  guess  there  never  will  be.  That's  where 
so  many  of  the  Klondikers  were  lost,  my  father 
told  me — twenty  years  ago  that  was." 

"They  took  a  year  for  it,"  commented 
Rob,  "and  sometimes  eighteen  months,  to 
get  across  the  mountains  there.  They  built 
houses  and  passed  the  winter,  and  so  a  great 
many  of  them  got  sick  and  died.  But  twenty 
years  ago  is  a  long  time  nowadays.  We  can  do 
easily  what  they  could  hardly  do  at  all.  Uncle 
Dick  has  allowed  us  about  three  weeks  to  cover 
that  five  himdred  miles  over  the  Rat  Portage!" 

"Well,  surely  if  Sir  Alexander  Mackenzie 
could  make  that  trip  in  birch-bark  canoes, 
over  three  thousand  miles,  with  just  a  few 
men  who  didn't  know  where  they  were  going, 
we  ought  to  be  able  to  get  through  now. 
That  was  a  himdred  and  twenty-eight  years 
ago,  I  figure  it,  and  a  lot  of  things  have 
happened  since  then."  John  spoke  now  with 
considerable  confidence. 

9 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

"Well,  Uncle  Dick  will  take  care  of  us," 
said  Jesse,  the  youngest  of  these  adventurers. 

"Yes,  and  we'll  take  care  of  oiu-selves  all  we 
can,"  added  Rob.  "Uncle  Dick  tells  me  that 
the  trouble  with  the  Klondikers  was  that  they 
didn't  know  how  to  take  care  of  themselves 
out  of  doors.  A  lot  of  them  were  city  people 
fresh  to  all  kinds  of  wilderness  work,  and  they 
simply  died  because  they  didn't  know  how  to 
do  things.  They  were  tenderfeet  when  they 
started.  A  good  many  of  them  died  before 
they  got  through.  Some  of  those  who  did 
get  through  are  the  prominent  men  of  Alaska 
to-day.  But  we're  not  tenderfeet.  Are  we, 
boys?" 

"No,  indeed,"  said  Jesse,  stoutly.  "As  I 
said,  I'm  ready  to  start."  And  he  again 
puffed  out  his  chest  with  much  show  of 
bravery,  although,  to  be  sure,  the  wild  country 
in  which  he  now  found  himself  rather  worked 
on  his  imagination. 

It  had  required  all  the  persuasion  of  Uncle 
Dick,  expert  railway  engineer  in  wilderness 
countries,  to  persuade  the  parents  of  these 
three  boys  to  allow  them  to  accompany  him 
on  this,  his  own  first  exploration  into  the  ex- 
treme North,  imder  the  Midnight  Sun  itself. 
He  had  promised  them — and  something  of  a 
promise   it   was,  too  —  to  bring   the   yoimg 

lO 


THE  START  FOR  THE  MIDNIGHT  SUN 

travelers  back  safely  to  their  home  in  Valdez, 
on  the  Pacific  Ocean,  in  three  months  from 
the  time  they  left  the  head  of  the  railroad  at 
Athabasca  Landing. 

"Well,  now,"  said  John,  folding  up  his 
map  and  putting  it  back  in  his  pocket,  "here 
comes  Uncle  Dick  at  last.  I  only  hope  that 
we  won't  have  to  wait  long,  for  it  seems  to 
me  we'll  have  to  hustle  if  we  get  through  on 
time — over  five  thousand  miles  it  will  be, 
and  in  less  than  ninety  days!  I'll  bet  Sir 
Alexander  Mackenzie  himself  couldn't  have 
beat  that  a  himdred  years  ago." 


II 

THE   SCOWS 

"\  T[  TELL,  well,  young  gentlemen,"  called 

VV  out  the  tall  and  bronze-faced  man 
who  now  strode  toward  them  across  the  rail- 
way platform,  "did  you  think  I  was  never 
coming?  I  see  that  you  are  holding  down  your 
luggage." 

"Not  a  hard  thing  to  do,  was  it.  Uncle 
Dick?"  said  Jesse.  "We  haven't  got  very 
much  along." 

"That  all  depends.  Let  me  tell  you,  my 
young  friends,  on  this  trip  every  fellow  has 
to  look  out  for  himself  the  best  he  can.  It's 
the  hardest  travel  you've  ever  had.  You  must 
keep  your  eye  on  your  own  stuff  all  along." 

"What  do  you  mean — that  we  must  be 
careful  or  some  one  will  steal  our  things?" 
demanded  Jesse. 

"No,  there  isn't  so  very  much  danger  of 
theft — that  is,  from  the  breeds  or  others  along 
the  way;  they'll  steal  whisky,  but  nothing 


THE  SCOWS 

else,  usually.  But  it's  a  rough  cotintry,  and 
there  are  many  portages,  much  changing  of 
cargoes.  Each  chap  must  keep  his  eye  on  his 
own  kit  all  the  time,  and  look  out  for  himself 
the  best  way  he  can.  That's  the  lesson  of  this 
great  North.  It's  the  roughest  country  in  the 
world.  As  you  know,  there  is  an  old  saying 
among  the  fur-traders  that  no  man  has  ever 
whipped  the  North. 

"I  was  thinking  more  especially  about  the 
dogs,"  he  added,  nodding  toward  the  luggage 
on  which  the  boys  were  sitting. 

"And  what  do  you  mean  about  the  dogs, 
Uncle  Dick?"  asked  Jesse. 

"Well,  those  are  the  beggars  that  will  steal 
you  blind.  They'll  eat  anything  they  can 
swallow  and  some  things  they  can't.  I've 
had  them  eat  the  heels  off  a  pair  of  boots,  and 
moccasins  are  like  pie  for  them.  They  would 
eat  yoiu-  hat  if  you  left  it  lying — eat  the  pack- 
straps  off  yoiu-  bag.  So  don't  leave  anything 
lying  aroimd,  and  remember  that  goes  now, 
and  all  the  way  through  the  trip." 

"Are  there  dogs  all  the  way  through?" 
asked  John,  ciuiously. 

"Yes,  we're  in  the  dog  cotmtry,  and  will  be 
for  five  thousand  miles  down  one  river  and 
across  and  up  the  other.  You'll  not  see  a 
cow  or  a  sheep,  and  only  two  horses,  in  the 

13 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

next  three  months.  North  of  Smith's  Landing, 
which  is  at  the  head  of  the  Mackenzie  River 
proper,  there  never  has  been  a  horse,  and  I 
think  there  never  will  be  one.  The  dogs  do 
all  the  hauling  and  all  the  packing — and  they 
are  always  hungry.  That's  what  the  fellows 
tell  me  who  have  been  up  there — the  whole 
country  starves  almost  the  year  round,  and 
the  dogs  worst  of  all.  I'm  just  telling  you 
these  things  to  be  useful  to  you,  because  we've 
got  nothing  along  which  we  can  afford  to 
spare." 

"When  are  we  going  to  start.  Uncle  Dick?" 
demanded  Jesse,  once  more,  somewhat  mind- 
ful of  the  recent  laughter  of  his  companions  at 
his  eagerness. 

"Well,  that's  hard  to  say,"  replied  his  elder 
relative.  "I'd  like  to  start  to-morrow  morn- 
ing. It  all  depends  on  the  stage  of  the  water. 
If  a  flood  came  down  the  Athabasca  to-morrow 
you'd  see  pretty  much  every  breed  in  that 
saloon  over  there  stop  drinking  and  hurry  to 
the  scows." 

"What's  that  got  to  do  with  it?"  asked 
John. 

"Well,  when  the  river  goes  up  the  scows  can 
nm  the  Grand  Rapids,  down  below  here,  with- 
out unloading,  or  at  least  without  unloading 
everything.     If  the  river  is  low  so  that  the 

14 


THE  SCOWS 

rocks  stand  out,  the  men  have  to  portage  every 
pound  of  the  brigade  stuff.  The  Grand  Rapids 
are  bad,  let  me  tell  you  that !  It  is  only  within 
the  last  fifty  years  that  any  one  has  ever  tried 
to  run  them.  I'll  show  you  the  man  who  first 
went  through — an  old  man  now  over  seventy; 
but  he  was  a  young  chap  when  he  first  tried  it. 
Well,  he  fotmd  that  he  could  get  through,  so 
he  tried  it  over  again.  He  and  others  have 
been  guiding  on  those  rapids  ever  since. 
That  cuts  off  the  old  Clearwater  trail  from 
here  to  Fort  McMurray,  which  used  to  be 
their  old  w^ay  of  getting  north. 

"So  now  you  see,"  he  continued,  "why 
these  breeds  like  high  water.  It  means  less 
work  for  them.  It's  hard  work  for  them  at 
best,  but  a  breed  would  rather  risk  his  life 
than  do  any  work  he  could  escape.  They 
know  there  is  danger  —  there  is  hardly  a 
brigade  goes  north  which  brings  back  all  its 
men  again. 

"But  come  on  now,"  he  added.  "It's 
almost  time  for  supper.  We'll  go  fix  up  our 
camp  for  the  night." 

The  boys,  each  stoutly  picking  up  his  own 
pack-bag,  followed  their  tall  leader  as  he 
strode  away.  Their  camp  was  far  enough 
removed  from  the  noise  of  the  hotel  bar  to 
leave  them  in  qiiiet  and  undisturbed. 

15 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

"My,  but  the  mosquitoes  are  thick!"  said 
Jesse,  brushing  at  his  face  with  the  broken 
bough  which  he  had  caught  up.  "I  never 
saw  them  so  bad." 

"Well,  Jesse,"  said  Uncle  Dick,  smiling» 
"just  you  wait.  Before  you  get  back  you'll 
say  you  never  saw  mosquitoes  before  in  your 
life.  The  traders  tell  me  that  they  are  worse 
the  farther  north  you  go.  They  say  it  takes 
about  two  or  three  years  for  a  new  man  to 
get  used  to  them  so  that  he  can  sleep  or  work 
at  his  best — it's  a  sort  of  nervousness  that  they 
stir  up,  though  in  time  that  wears  off.  I  think 
also  when  they  keep  on  biting  you  you  get 
immime  to  the  poison,  so  that  it  doesn't  hurt 
so  much." 

"Don't  they  bite  the  half-breeds  and  Ind- 
ians?" asked  John. 

"  Certainly  they  bite  them.  You  watch  the 
breeds  aroimd  a  camp  at  night.  Every  fellow 
will  cover  up  his  head  with  his  blanket,  so 
that  he  can  sleep  or  smother,  as  it  happens. 
As  for  us,  however,  we've  got  oiu:  black 
headnets  and  oiu:  long-sleeved  gloves.  Dope 
isn't  much  good.  No  one  cares  much  for 
mosquito  dope  in  the  Far  North;  you'll  see 
more  of  it  in  the  States  than  you  will  in  here, 
because  they  have  learned  that  it  is  more  or 
less  useless. 

i6 


THE  SCOWS 

"  Ovir  big  mosquito  tent  is  just  the  same  as 
the  one  we  took  down  the  Columbia  River 
with  us — the  one  that  the  Indians  cut  the 
end  out  of  when  we  gave  it  to  them!  I've 
tried  that  tent  all  through  Alaska  in  my  work, 
and  everywhere  in  this  part  of  the  world,  and 
it's  the  only  thing  for  mosquitoes.  You  crawl 
in  through  the  little  sleeve  and  tie  it  after  you 
get  inside,  and  then  kill  the  mosquitoes  that 
have  followed  you  in.  The  windows  allow  you 
to  get  fresh  air,  and  the  floor  cloth  sewed  in 
keeps  the  mosquitoes  from  coming  up  from 
below.    It's  the  only  protection  in  the  world." 

"  But  I  saw  a  lot  of  little  tents  or  bars  down 
in  the  camp  near  the  river  a  little  while  ago," 
said  Rob. 

"Precisely.  That's  the  other  answer  to  the 
mosquito  question — the  individual  mosquito 
bar-tent.  They  are  regularly  made  and  sold 
in  all  this  northern  country  now,  and  mighty 
useful  they  are,  too.  As  you  see,  it's  just  a 
piece  of  canvas  about  six  feet  long  and  one 
breadth  wide,  with  mosquito  bar  sewed  to  the 
edges.  You  tie  up  each  comer  to  a  tree  or 
stick,  and  let  the  bar  of  cheese-cloth  drop 
down  around  your  bed,  which  you  make  on 
the  ground.  When  you  lie  down  you  tuck  the 
edge  under  your  blankets,  and  there  you  are! 
If  you  don't  roll  about  very  much  you  are 

17 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

fairly  safe  from  mosquitoes.  That,  let  me  say, 
is  the  t3^ical  individual  remedy  for  mosquitoes 
in  this  coimtry.  Of  course,  when  we  are  out 
on  railroad  work,  map-making  and  writing 
and  the  like,  we  have  to  have  something  bigger 
and  better  than  that.  That  sort  of  little 
tent  is  only  for  the  single  night.  No  doubt 
we'll  use  them  ourselves,  traveling  along  on 
the  scows,  because  it  is  a  good  deal  of  trouble 
to  put  up  a  big  wall  tent  every  night. 

"The  distances  in  this  coimtry  are  so  big," 
he  added,  after  a  time,  explaining,  "that 
every  one  travels  in  a  hurry  and  spends  no 
imnecessary  work  in  making  camp.  We'll 
have  to  learn  to  break  camp  in  ten  minutes, 
and  to  make  it  in  fifteen.  I  should  say  it 
would  take  us  about  thirty  minutes  to  make  a 
landing,  build  a  fire,  cook  a  meal,  and  get  off 
again.  There's  no  time  to  be  wasted,  don't 
you  see?" 

"I  suppose  Sir  Alexander  Mackenzie  found 
that  out  himself  when  he  first  went  down  this 
river,"  said  Rob. 

"I'll  warrant  you  he  did!  And  his  lesson 
has  stuck  in  the  minds  of  all  these  northern 
people  to  this  day." 

"Well,  anyhow,"  commented  Jesse,  as  one 
mosquito  bit  his  hand,  "I  wish  they  wouldn't 
bother  me  while  I'm  eating." 

i8 


THE  SCOWS 

"Now  if  John  had  said  that,"  said  Uncle 
Dick,  "it  wotddn't  be  so  strange." 

They  all  joined  in  his  laughing  at  John, 
whose  appetite  made  a  standing  joke  among 
them.  But  John  only  laughed  with  them  and 
went  on  with  his  supper.  "There  can't  any- 
body bluff  me  out  of  a  good  meal,"  said  he, 
"not  even  the  mosquitoes." 

"That's  the  idea,"  nodded  his  older  adviser. 
"But  really  these  insect  pests  are  the  great 
drawback  of  this  entire  northern  cotmtry. 
Perhaps  they  will  keep  the  settlers  out  as 
much  as  anything  else.  Fur-traders  and 
trappers  and  travelers  like  ourselves — they 
can't  stop  for  them,  of  course.  We'll  take 
our  chances  like  Sir  Alexander  Mackenzie — 
eh,  boys?" 

"I'm  not  afraid,"  said  Jesse. 

"Nor  I,"  added  John. 

And  indeed  they  finished  their  evening 
meal,  which  they  cooked  for  themselves,  in 
fairly  comfortable  surroimdings ;  and  in  their 
mosquito  -  proof  tent  they  passed  an  un- 
troubled night,  each  in  the  morning  declaring 
that  he  had  slept  in  perfect  comfort. 

"We'll  leave  the  tents  standing  for  a  while," 
said  Uncle  Dick,  "imtil  we  know  just  when 
we  are  going  to  embark.  The  brigade  may 
pijill  out  any  day  now.     We'll  have  warning 

19 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

enough  so  that  we  can  easily  get  ready. 
But  come  on  now  and  we'll  go  over  to  the 
boat-yard,"  he  added.  "It's  time  we  began 
to  see  about  our  own  boat  and  to  get  our 
supplies  ready  for  shipping." 

They  followed  him  through  the  straggling 
town  down  to  the  edge  of  the  water-front, 
where  the  Athabasca,  now  somewhat  turbu- 
lent in  the  high  waters  of  the  spring,  rolled 
rapidly  by. 

Here  there  was  a  rude  sort  of  lumber-yard, 
to  all  appearance,  with  the  addition  of  a  sort 
of  rough  shipyard.  Chips  and  shavings  and 
fragments  of  boards  lay  all  about.  Here  and 
there  on  trestles  stood  the  gaimt  frames  of 
what  appeared  to  be  rough  flatboats,  long, 
wide,  and  shallow,  constructed  with  no  great 
art  or  care.  There  was  no  keel  to  any  one  of 
these  boats,  and  the  ribs  were  flimsily  put 
together. 

''Well,  I  don't  think  much  of  these  boats," 
grumbled  John,  as  he  passed  among  them 
slowly. 

"Don't  be  too  rough  with  them,"  said 
Uncle  Dick,  laughingly.  "Like  everything 
else  up  here,  they  may  not  be  the  best  in  the 
world,  but  they  do  for  their  purpose.  These 
scows  are  never  intended  to  come  back,  you 
must  remember;  all  they  have  to  do  is  to 

20 


THE  SCOWS 

stand  the  trip  down,  for  a  month  or  two. 
All  the  frame  houses  of  the  Far  North  are  made 
out  of  these  scows ;  they  break  them  up  at  the 
ends  of  the  trips.  Our  boat  may  be  part  of  a 
chiu"ch  before  it  gets  through. 

"Come  now,  and  I'll  introduce  you  to  old 
Adam  McAdam,  the  builder  and  pimip- 
maker."  He  nodded  toward  an  old  man  who 
was  passing  slowly  here  and  there  among  the 
rude  craft.  "This  old  chap  is  no  doubt  over 
seventy-five  years  old,  and  he  must  have 
built  hundreds  of  these  boats  in  his  time. 
He  makes  the  pumps,  too,  and  a  piunp  has  to 
go  with  every  scow  to  keep  it  from  sinking  at 
first,  before  the  seams  get  swelled  up." 

The  old  man  proved  pleasant  enough,  and 
with  a  certain  pride  showed  them  all  about 
these  rude  craft  of  the  fur  trade.  Each  boat 
appeared  to  be  about  fifty  feet  in  length  and 
nearly  twenty  in  width,  the  carrying  capacity 
of  each  being  about  ten  tons. 

"Of  course  you  know,  my  lads,"  said  the 
old  man,  "a  scow  goes  no  faster  than  the 
river  nms.  Here's  the  great  oar  —  twenty 
feet  it  is  in  length — made  out  of  a  young  tree. 
The  steersman  uses  that  to  straighten  her  up 
betimes.  But  there's  nothing  to  make  the 
boat  nm  saving  the  current,  do  ye  mind?" 

"Well,  that  won't  be  so  very  fast,"  com- 

21 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

merited  Rob,  thitiking  of  the  long  distances 
that  lay  ahead. 

"Oh,  we're  not  confined  to  scows  for  much 
more  than  two  himdred  and  fifty  miles,** 
replied  Uncle  Dick.  **At  McMurray  we  get 
a  steamer  which  carries  us  down-stream  to 
Smith's  Landing.  That's  the  big  and  bad 
portage  of  the  whole  trip — that  is  to  say,  ex- 
cepting the  Rat  Portage  of  five  htmdred  miles 
over  the  Yukon.  But  when  we  get  below 
the  Smith's  Landing  portage  we  strike  another 
Hudson's  Bay  Company  steamer  that  takes 
us  fast  enough,  day  and  night,  all  the  way  to 
the  Arctic  Circle.  That's  where  we  make  our 
time,  don't  you  see?  These  boats  only  get  us 
over  the  rapids. 

"Of  course,"  he  explained,  a  little  later,  "a 
few  of  them  go  on  down,  towed  by  the  steam- 
boats, because  the  steamboats  are  not  big 
enough  to  carry  all  the  freight  which  must  go 
north.  There  are  only  two  steamboats  between 
us  and  the  Arctic  Circle  now,  barring  one  or 
two  little  ones  which  are  not  of  much  account. 
The  scows  have  to  carry  all  the  supplies  for 
the  entire  fur  trade — ^trade  goods,  bacon,  flour, 
and  everything." 

"Who's  that  old  gentleman  coming  along 
there.  Uncle  Dick?"  demanded  Jesse,  turning 
toward  the  end  of  the  street. 

22 


THE   SCOWS 

"That's  old  Father  Le  Fevre,"  replied  his 
uncle.  "He's  the  purchasing  agent  for  all 
the  many  missions  of  the  Catholic  Church  in 
the  Far  North.  Each  year  he  comes  in  with 
ten  or  more  scows,  each  carrying  ten  tons  of 
goods.  He  may  go  as  far  as  Chippewyan,  and 
then  come  back,  or  he  may  go  on  to  Great 
Slave.  I  understand  there  are  two  good 
Sisters  going  even  farther  north  this  year. 
No  one  knows  when  they  will  come  back,  of 
course;  they'll  be  teachers  up  among  the 
native  schools. 

"Well,  now  you  see  the  transport  system 
beyond  the  head  of  the  rails  in  the  Athabasca 
and  Mackenzie  country,"  he  continued,  as, 
hands  in  pocket,  he  passed  along  among  the 
finished  and  imfinished  craft  which  still  lay  in 
the  shipyard. 

Outside,  moored  to  stumps  along  the  shore, 
floated  a  number  of  the  rude  scows,  some  of 
which  even  now  were  partially  laden.  The 
leader  of  the  expedition  pointed  out  to  one  of 
these. 

"That's  our  boat  yonder,  young  men,"  said 
he.  "You'll  see  that  she  has  the  distinction 
of  a  name.  Most  scows  have  only  numbers 
on  them,  and  each  post  gets  certain  scows  with 
certain  numbers.  But  ours  has  a  name — the 
Midnight  Sun.    How  do  you  like  that?" 

3  23 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

"That's  fine,  sir!"  said  Rob.  "And  we'll 
see  to  it  that  she  doesn't  come  to  grief  as  long 
as  we  use  her." 

"Well,  it  will  only  be  for  a  couple  of  hundred 
miles  or  so,"  said  Uncle  Dick,  "but  I  fancy 
there'll  be  nothing  slow  in  that  two  hundred 
miles." 

"Where  will  we  eat?"  demanded  John, 
with  his  usual  regard  for  creature  comforts. 

"That's  easy,"  said  Rob.  "I  know  all 
about  that.  I  saw  two  men  loading  a  cook- 
stove  on  one  of  the  scows.  They  took  it  out 
of  a  canoe,  and  how  they  did  it  without  up- 
setting the  canoe  I  can't  tell,  but  they  did 
it.    I  suppose  we'll  cook  as  we  go  along." 

"Precisely,"  nodded  Uncle  Dick.  "The 
cook-boat  is  the  only  thing  that  goes  under 
steam.  The  cook  builds  his  fire  in  the  stove 
just  as  though  he  were  on  shore.  When  he 
calls  time  for  meals,  the  men  from  the  other 
boats  take  tiuns  in  putting  out  in  canoes  and 
going  to  the  cook-boat  for  meals.  Sometimes 
a  landing  is  made  while  they  eat,  and  of  coiu-se 
they  always  tie  up  at  night  They  have  cer- 
tain stages  which  they  try  to  make.  The  whole 
thing  is  all  planned  out  on  a  pretty  good  sys- 
tem, rough  but  effective,  as  you  will  see." 

"Is  he  a  pretty  good  cook?"  asked  John, 
somewhat  demurring. 

24 


THE  SCOWS 

''Well,  good  enough  for  us,  if  he  is  good 
enough  for  the  others,"  replied  his  uncle. 
"But  I'll  tell  you  what  we  might  do  once  in  a 
while.  They  do  say  that  the  two  good  Sisters 
who  go  north  with  the  mission  brigade  know 
how  to  cook  better  than  any  half-breed. 
I've  made  arrangements  so  that  we  can  eat 
on  their  scow  once  in  a  while  if  we  like." 

"What's  that  funny  business  on  the  end  of 
our  boat?"  asked  Jesse,  presently,  pointing  to  a 
rude  framework  of  bent  poles  which  covered 
the  short  deck  at  the  stem  of  the  boat. 

"That's  what  they  call  a  'bower*  up  in  this 
country,"  said  Uncle  Dick.  "They  have 
some  curious  old  English  words  in  here,  even 
yet.  Now  a  bower  is  simply  a  lot  of  poles, 
like  an  Indian  wickiup,  covering  the  end  of 
your  boat,  as  you  see.  You  can  throw  your 
blankets  over  it,  if  you  like,  or  green  willows. 
It  keeps  the  sim  off.  Since  the  Hudson's  Bay 
Company  charges  a  pretty  stiff  price  for 
taking  any  passenger  north,  it  tries  to  earn 
its  money  by  building  a  bower  for  the  select 
few,  such  as  we  are." 

"I  don't  think  that  we  need  any  bower," 
said  Rob,  and  all  the  other  boys  shook  their 
heads. 

"A  little  simshine  won't  hiirt  us,"  said 
Jesse,  stoutly. 

25 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

"But  think  of  the  style  about  it,"  laughed 
Uncle  Dick,  pleased  to  see  the  hardiness  of  his 
young  charges.  "Well,  we'll  do  as  we  like 
about  that.  One  thing,  we've  got  to  have  a 
chance  to  see  out,  for  I  know  you  will  want  to 
keep  your  eyes  open  every  foot  of  the  way." 

"Well,  I  wish  the  breeds  would  hurry  up 
and  get  the  boats  loaded,"  added  Jesse,  im- 
patiently, after  a  while.  "There's  nothing 
doing  here  worth  while." 

"Don't  be  too  hard  with  the  breeds," 
counseled  Uncle  Dick.  "They're  like  chil- 
dren, that's  all.  This  is  the  best  time  of  the 
year  for  them,  when  the  great  fur  brigade  goes 
north.  It  couldn't  go  without  them.  The  fur 
trade  in  this  country  couldn't  exist  without 
the  half-breeds  and  the  full-bloods;  there's  a 
half-dozen  tribes  on  whom  the  revenues  of 
this  great  corporation  depend  absolutely. 

"You'll  see  now  the  best  water-men  and  the 
best  trail-men  in  the  world.  Look  at  these 
packages — a  himdred  pounds  or  better  in 
each.  Every  pound  of  all  that  stuff  is  to  be 
portaged  across  the  Smith's  Landing  portage, 
and  the  Moimtain  Portage,  and  even  at  Grand 
Island,  just  below  here,  if  the  water  is  low. 
They  have  to  carry  it  up  from  the  scows  to  the 
steamboats,  and  from  the  steamboats  to  the 
shore.     Every  pound  is  handled  again  and 

26 


THE   SCOWS 

again.  It's  the  half-breeds  that  do  that. 
They're  as  strong  as  horses  and  as  patient  as 
dogs;  fine  men  they  are,  so  you  must  let  them 
have  their  little  fling  after  their  old  ways; 
they  don't  know  any  better." 

"How  many  of  the  fur  posts  are  there  in  the 
North,  Uncle  Dick?"  asked  Rob,  curious 
always  to  be  exact  in  all  his  information. 

"Well,  let's  see,"  pondered  Uncle  Dick, 
holding  up  his  fingers  and  counting  them  off. 
"The  first  one  above  here  is  McMurray; 
that's  one  of  the  treaty  posts  where  the  tribes 
are  paid  their  annuities  by  the  Dominion 
government.  It's  two  hundred  and  fifty- two 
miles  from  here,  and  there's  where  we  hit  our 
first  steamboat,  as  I  told  you. 

"Then  comes  Chippew^^an,  on  Athabasca 
Lake.  It  was  founded  by  Sir  Alexander 
Mackenzie  in  seventeen  eighty-eight,  and  from 
that  time  on  it  has  been  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant trading-posts  of  the  North — in  fact,  I 
believe  it  is  the  most  important  to-day,  as  it 
seems  to  be  a  sort  of  center,  right  where  a  lot 
of  rivers  converge.  That's  four  himdred  and 
thirty-seven  miles  from  here.  When  you  get 
that  far  in,  my  buckos,  you'll  be  able  to  say 
that  you  are  away  from  the  hated  pale-faces 
and  fairly  launched  on  your  trip  through  the 
wildest  wilderness  the  world  has  to-day.     It 

27 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH' 

is  a  hiindred  miles  on  to  Smith's  Landing — ■ 
sixteen  miles  there  of  the  fiercest  water  you 
ever  saw  in  all  your  lives.  Wagon  portage 
there,  but  sometimes  the  boats  go  through. 
Fort  Smith  is  at  the  other  end  of  that 
portage. 

"Next  down  is  Fort  Resolution,  and  that's 
seven  hundred  and  forty-five  miles  from  here. 
Hay  River  is  eight  himdred  and  fifteen,  and 
Fort  Providence  nine  hundred  and  five  miles, 
and  Fort  Simpson,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Liard 
River,  is  a  thousand  and  eighty-five  miles 
from  here.  Getting  along  in  the  world  pretty 
well  then,  eh? 

"There  are  a  few  others  as  I  recall  them — 
Fort  Wrigley,  twelve  hundred  and  sixty-five 
miles  from  here,  and  Fort  Norman,  fourteen 
himdred  and  thirty-seven  miles.  Now  you 
come  to  Fort  Good  Hope,  and  that  is  right 
under  the  Arctic  Circle.  It  is  sixteen  hundred 
and  nine  miles  from  here,  where  we  are  at  the 
head  of  the  railroads.  If  we  are  fast  enough 
in  our  journey  we'll  get  our  first  sight  of  the 
Midnight  Sun  at  Good  Hope,  perhaps. 

"The  next  post  north  of  Good  Hope  is 
Arctic  Red  River,  eighteen  hundred  and  nine- 
teen miles;  and  of  course  you  know  that  the 
last  post  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  is 
Fort  McPherson,  on  the  Peel  River,  near  the 

28 


THE  SCOWS 

mouth  of  the  Mackenzie.  That  is  rated  as 
eighteen  hundred  and  nineteen  miles  by  the 
government  map-makers,  who  may  or  may 
not  be  right;  being  an  engineer  myself,  I'll  say 
they  must  be  right!  In  roimd  numbers  we 
might  as  well  call  it  two  thousand  miles. 

"Well,  that's  your  distance,  young  men, 
and  here  are  the  ships  which  are  to  carry  you 
part  of  the  way." 

"And  when  we  get  to  Fort  McPherson 
we're  not  half-way  through,  are  we,  sir?" 
asked  Rob. 

"No,  we're  not,  and  if  we  were  starting  a 
hundred  and  twenty-eight  years  earlier  than 
we  are,  with  Sir  Alexander  Mackenzie,  we 
would  have  to  hustle  to  get  back  before  the 
snows  caught  us.  As  it  is,  we'll  hope  some  time 
in  July  to  start  across  the  Rat  Portage.  That's 
five  himdred  miles,  just  along  the  Arctic  Circle, 
and  in  that  five  hundred  miles  we  go  from 
Canadian  into  American  territory — at  Ram- 
part House,  on  the  Porcupine  River.  Well, 
it's  down-stream  from  there  to  the  Yiikon, 
and  then  we  hit  our  own  boats — more  of 
them,  and  faster  and  more  comfortable.  I  have 
no  doubt,  John,  that  you  can  get  all  you  want 
to  eat  on  any  one  of  a  half-dozen  good  boats 
that  ply  on  the  Yukon  to-day  from  White 

Horse  down  to  the  mouth. 

29 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

"Of  course,"  he  added,  "this  trip  of  ours  is 
not  quite  as  rough  as  it  would  have  been 
twenty  years  ago  when  the  Klondike  rush 
began.  The  world  has  moved  since  then, 
as  it  always  has  moved  and  always  will.  I 
suppose  some  time  white  men  will  live  in  a 
good  deal  of  this  country  which  we  now  think 
impossible  for  a  white  man  to  inhabit.  Little 
by  little,  as  they  learn  the  ways  of  the  Indians 
and  half-breeds,  they  will  edge  north,  changing 
things  as  they  go. 

"But  I  don't  want  to  talk  about  those 
times,"  he  added,  shrugging  his  shoulders. 
"I'm  for  the  wilderness  as  it  is,  and  I'm  glad 
that  you  three  boys  and  myself  can  see  that 
country  up  there  before  it  has  changed  too 
much.  Not  that  it  is  any  country  for  a 
tenderfoot  now.  You'll  find  it  wild  enough 
and  rough  enough.  It  has  gone  back  since 
the  Klondike  rush.  In  travel  you'll  see  the  old 
ways  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  even 
although  the  independents  have  cut  into  their 
trade  a  little  bit.  You'll  see  the  Far  North 
much  as  it  was  when  Sir  Alexander  first  went 
down  our  river  here. 

"And  as  you  go  on  I  want  you  to  study  the 
old  times,  and  the  new  times  as  well.  That's 
the  way,  boys,  to  learn  things.  As  for  me,  I 
found  out  long  ago  that  the  only  way  to  learn 

30 


THE  SCOWS 

about  a  country  is  not  to  look  it  up  on  a  map, 
but  to  tramp  across  it  in  your  moccasins. 

"So  now,"  he  concluded,  as  they  four  stood 
at  the  river's  brink,  looking  out  at  the  long 
line  of  the  scows  swinging  in  the  rapid  current 
of  the  Athabasca,  "that's  the  first  lesson. 
What  do  you  think  of  our  boat,  the  Midnight 
Sun?'' 

"She's  fine,  sir!"  said  Rob,  and  the  other 
boys,  eagerly  looking  up  into  the  face  of  their 
tall  and  self-reHant  leader,  showed  plainly 
enough  their  enjoyment  of  the  prospect  and 
their  confidence  in  their  ability  to  meet  what 
might  be  on  ahead. 


Ill 

THE  GREAT  BRIGADE 

ROLL  out!  Roll  out!"  called  the  cheery 
voice  of  Uncle  Dick  on  the  second  morn- 
ing of  the  stay  at  Athabasca  Landing. 

"Aye,  aye,  sir!"  came  three  young  voices 
in  reply.  The  yoimg  adventurers  kicked  off 
their  blankets  and  one  by  one  emerged  through 
the  sleeve  of  the  mosquito  tent. 

"What  made  you  call  us  so  early?"  com- 
plained Jesse.  "It's  raining — it  began  in  the 
night — and  it  doesn't  look  as  if  it  were  going 
to  stop." 

"Well,  that's  the  very  good  news  weVe  been 
waiting  for!"  said  Uncle  Dick.  "It's  been 
raining  somewhere  else  as  well  as  here. 
Look  at  the  river — ^muddy  and  rising!  That 
means  that  things  will  begin  to  happen  in  these 
diggings  pretty  soon  now." 

For  experienced  campers  such  as  these  to 
prepare  breakfast  in  the  rain  was  no  great 
task,    and    they   hurriedly    concluded    their 

32 


THE  GREAT  BRIGADE 

preliminary  packing.  It  was  yet  early  in  the 
day  when  they  stood  on  the  river-bank,  look- 
ing at  the  great  fleet  of  scows  of  the  north- 
bound fur  brigade  as  the  boats  now  lay  swing- 
ing in  the  stiffening  current. 

The  river  was  indeed  rising ;  the  snow  to  the 
west  was  melting  in  the  rains  of  spring.  Time 
now  for  the  annual  fur  brigade  to  be  off! 

At  the  river  front  already  there  had  gathered 
most  of  the  motley  population  of  the  place. 
Everjrthing  now  was  activity.  Each  man 
seemed  to  know  his  work  and  to  be  busy 
about  it.  The  Company  manager  had  general 
charge  over  the  embarkation  of  the  cargo,  and 
certainly  the  men  under  him  were  willing 
workers. 

A  long  line  of  men  passed  over  the  narrow 
planks  which  lay  between  the  warehouses  and 
across  the  muddy  flats  to  the  deep  water 
where  the  boats  lay.  Each  man  carried  on  his 
shoulders  a  load  which  would  have  staggered 
the  ordinary  porter.  All  went  at  a  sort  of 
trot,  so  that  the  cargo  was  being  moved 
rapidly  indeed.  It  was  obvious  that  these 
half-breeds,  but  now  so  lazy  and  roistering, 
were  very  able  indeed  when  it  came  to  the 
matter  of  work,  and  easy  to  see  that  they 
were,  as  Uncle  Dick  had  said,  the  backbone 
of  the  fur  trade  of  the  North. 

33 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

One  after  another  a  young  half-breed  would 
come  hurrying  down  the  street,  his  hair  close 
cut  and  his  face  well  washed,  wearing  all  the 
finery  for  which  he  had  been  able  to  get  credit, 
now  that  he  had  a  prospect  of  wages  coming  in 
erelong.  The  resident  population  joined  those 
idling  about  the  warehouses  and  the  boat- 
yard, for  this  was  the  greatest  event  of  the 
year  for  them,  with  one  exception — that  is, 
the  return  of  the  much  smaller  brigade  bear- 
ing the  fur  down  from  the  northern  coimtry. 
This  would  come  in  the  fall.  Now  it  was 
spring,  and  the  great  fur  brigade  of  the 
Company  was  starting  north  on  its  savage 
annual  journey. 

Here  and  there  among  these  were  strange 
faces  also  to  be  of  the  north-boimd  company 
now  embarking.  Good  Father  Le  Fevre 
passed  among  them  all,  speaking  to  this  or 
that  man  of  the  half-breeds  pleasantly,  they 
having  each  a  greeting  for  him  in  turn.  This 
was  by  no  means  his  first  trip  with  the  brigade, 
and  himdreds  of  the  natives  knew  him. 

The  boys  stood  wondering  at  the  enormous 
loads  which  these  men  carried  from  the 
warehouses  out  to  the  boats.  Here  a  man 
might  have  on  his  back  a  great  slab  of  side- 
meat  weighing  more  than  a  himdred  and  fifty 
pounds,  and  on  top  of  that  a  sack  of  flour  or 

34 


THE  GREAT  BRIGADE 

so.  It  was  not  imiisual  to  see  a  slight  young 
chap  carrying  a  load  of  two  or  three  hundred 
pounds,  and  some  of  the  older  and  more 
powerful  men  engaged  in  a  proud  sort  of 
rivalry  among  themselves,  shouldering  and 
carr^^ng  out  literally  enormous  loads.  It 
was  said  of  one  of  these  men  that  he  once  had 
carried  a  cook- stove  weighing  five  hundred 
povinds  on  his  back  from  the  boat  landing  up 
the  hill  to  one  of  the  posts,  a  distance  of  many 
hundred  yards. 

"Well,  at  this  rate,"  said  Rob,  after  a 
time,  "it  won't  take  long  before  we'll  be  loaded 
and  on  our  way.  These  men  are  simply 
wonders.    Aren't  they?" 

Uncle  Dick  nodded  his  quiet  assent. 

"  Our  boat's  getting  loaded,  too,"  said  Jesse, 
pointing  to  where  the  Midnight  Sun  stood 
swinging  in  the  current.  "Look  at  them  fill 
her  up." 

It  was  true;  the  factor  in  charge  of  the  em- 
barkation-work was  checking  out  the  cargo 
for  each  boat.  Each  scow  had  its  number, 
and  that  number  was  credited  to  a  certain 
fur-post  along  the  great  route  to  the  mouth  of 
the  Mackenzie  River.  The  supplies  intended 
for  each  boat,  therefore,  went  into  the  proper 
boats.  All  the  cargo  intended  for  Uncle 
Dick's  party  was  marked  in  black,  "M.  S./* 

35 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

in  courtesy  to  the  name  of  this  boat,  the 
Midnight  Sun,  which  carried  no  number  at 

all. 

"We'll  not  go  as  heavily  loaded  as  some  of 
the  others,"  Uncle  Dick  explained,  "although 
it  is  only  courteous  that  we  should  take  all 
we  can,  since  transportation  is  so  hard.  We 
need  only  enough  to  take  us  to  the  mouth  of 
the  river  and  over  the  Rat  Portage  to  the 
Yukon.  Of  course  we'll  forget  all  about  our 
boat  when  we  get  below  the  rapids,  but 
they'll  tow  her  down  alongside  the  steamer. 

"I  have  told  you,"  he  went  on,  "that  this 
is  a  starving  country.  Now  you  can  see  why. 
They  can't  possibly  carry  into  that  far-away 
region  as  much  stuff  as  they  need  to  eat  and 
to  wear.  The  Company  does  the  best  it 
can,  and  so  do  all  these  mission  men  do  the 
best  they  can. 

"  Now  you  see  how  the  brigade  goes  north — 
not  in  birch-bark  canoes,  but  in  scows,  to-day. 
The  scow  has  even  taken  the  place  of  the  old 
York  boat.  That  was  the  boat  which  they 
formerly  used  on  the  Saskatchewan  and  some 
of  these  rivers  for  their  up-stream  work.  It's 
a  good  deal  like  a  Mackinaw  boat.  You'll 
see  here,  too,  one  or  two  scows  with  blunt 
ends,  such  as  they  call  the  "sturgeon"  nose. 
They  tow  a  little  easier  than  the   square- 

36 


THE  GREAT  BRIGADE 

ended  scow.  But  these  new  square-facers  are 
the  best  things  in  the  world  for  going  down- 
stream with  the  ciirrent." 

"Hadn't  we  better  get  our  packs  ready?" 
asked  Rob,  methodical  as  ever. 

"Yes,"  replied  their  leader,  "you  ought  to 
get  the  bed  rolls  made  up  and  the  tent  in  its 
bag  before  very  long.  I  don't  think  we'll 
be  started  a  great  while  before  simdown,  but 
we'll  get  ready. 

"It's  enough  to  get  ready,"  he  continued. 
"Don't  carry  your  own  stuff  down  to  the 
boats." 

"Why  not?"  asked  John,  curiously.  "We 
can  do  it  easily  enough." 

"Well,  you're  in  another  sort  of  country 
now,"  said  Uncle  Dick  to  him,  quietly. 
"Follow  customs  of  the  country.  You  must 
remember  that  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company 
is  a  very  old  monopoly,  and  it  has  its  own 
ways.  Always  it  treats  the  natives  as  though 
they  were  children  and  it  was  the  Great 
Father.  A  factor  is  a  sort  of  king  up  here. 
He  wouldn't  think  of  carrying  a  pound  of  his 
own  luggage  for  anything  in  the  world.  If  he 
began  that  sort  of  thing  the  natives  would  not 
respect  him  as  their  bourgeois.'' 

''Bourgeois?  What  does  that  mean?"  asked 
John,  again. 

37 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

*'Well,  about  the  same  as  boss,  I  suppose. 
It's  always  necessary  in  dealing  with  ignorant 
and  savage  peoples  to  take  the  attitude  that 
you  are  the  boss,  and  that  they  are  to  do 
what  you  tell  them.  If  you  get  too  familiar 
or  lower  yourself  too  much  with  primitive 
people,  they  don't  respect  you,  because  they 
think  you're  afraid  of  them. 

"Now,  that  has  always  been  the  custom  of 
the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  in  this  work.  In 
the  old  days,  when  things  were  more  auto- 
cratic, when  a  factor  went  on  a  journey  his 
people  picked  him  up  and  carried  him  into  his 
boat,  and  when  he  went  ashore  they  picked 
him  up  and  carried  him  out  again.  If  anybody 
got  wet  or  tired  or  himgry  be  sure  it  wasn't 
the  boss! 

"You  see,  young  gentlemen,  while  I  don't 
want  you,  of  all  things  in  the  world,  ever  to  be 
snobbish,  I  do  want  you  to  be  observant. 
So  just  take  this  advice  from  me,  and  let 
these  men  do  your  work  right  at  the  start. 
They  expect  it,  and  they  will  treat  you  all  the 
better — and  of  course  you  will  treat  them  well." 

"Who  is  that  old  pirate  standing  over  there 
by  the  boat  landing?"  asked  Jesse,  presently, 
pointing  to  a  tall,  dark,  and  sinewy  man  with 
full  black  beard,  who  seemed  to  have  a  certain 
authority  among  the  laborers. 

38 


THE  GREAT  BRIGADE 

"That's  Cap.  Shott.  I've  told  you  that  he 
was  the  first  man  who  ever  ran  the  Grand 
Rapids  of  the  Athabasca  River.  His  real 
name  is  Louis  Faisoneure.  He's  seventy- 
seven  years  old,  but  still  he  likes  to  go  down 
with  the  brigade,  part  way  at  least. 

"The  quiet  yoimg  man  just  beyond  him  is 
his  son,  Frangois.  He  is  the  real  captain — or 
commodore,  as  they  call  it — of  the  brigade, 
and  has  been  for  several  years.  He'll  be  the 
steersman  on  oui  boat,  so  that  in  one  way  you 
might  say  that  the  Midnight  Sun,  although 
not  a  Company  boat,  will  pretty  much  be  the 
flag-ship  of  the  brigade  this  year.  They're 
treating  us  as  well  as  they  know  how,  and  I 
must  say  we'll  have  no  cause  to  complain." 

"Cap.  Shott,"  as  they  nicknamed  him,  did 
indeed  have  a  piratical  look,  as  John  had 
said.  He  stood  more  than  six  and  a  half  feet 
in  his  moccasins,  and  was  straight  as  an  arrow, 
with  the  waist  of  a  boy.  His  face  was  dark, 
his  eyebrows  very  heavy  and  black,  and  his 
dark,  full  beard,  his  scant  trousers  held  up 
with  a  brilliant  scarf,  and  his  generally 
ferocious  appearance,  gave  him  a  peculiarly 
wild  and  outlandish  look,  although  personally 
he  was  gentle  as  a  child. 

"Well,  Cap.  Shott,"  said  Uncle  Dick,  ap- 
proaching him,  "we  start  to-day,  eh?" 

4  39 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

"Mebbe  so,  oui,'"  replied  the  old  man. 
**We  load  h'all  the  boats  bimeby  now.  Yes, 
pretty  soon  bimeby  we  start,  mebbe  so,  oui^ 

"Well,"  said  Uncle  Dick,  smiling,  as  he 
tirmed  to  the  boys,  "that's  about  as  definite 
as  you  can  get  anjrthing.  We'll  start  when  we 
start!  Just  get  your  stuff  ready  to  be  em- 
barked and  tell  the  manager  where  it  is.  It 
will  be  on  board  all  right." 

"But  what  makes  them  start  so  late  in  the 
day?"  demanded  John,  who  was  of  an  investi- 
gative turn  of  mind.  "I  should  think  the 
morning  was  the  right  time  to  start." 

"Not  so  the  great  fur  brigade,"  was  his 
answer.  "Nor  was  it  the  custom  in  the  great 
fur  brigades  which  went  out  with  pack-trains 
from  the  Missouri  in  our  own  old  days  when 
there  were  buffalo  and  beaver.  A  short  start 
was  made  on  the  first  day,  usually  toward 
evening.  Then  when  camp  was  made  every- 
thing was  overhauled,  and  if  anything  had 
been  left  behind  it  was  not  too  far  to  send 
back  to  get  it.  Nearly  always  it  was  found 
that  something  had  been  overlooked. 

"Now  that's  the  way  we'll  do  here,  so  they 
tell  me.  We'll  run  down  the  river  a  few  miles, 
each  boat  as  it  is  loaded,  and  then  we'll  make 
a  landing.  That  will  give  each  boat  captain 
time  to  look  over  his  stuff  and  his  men — and, 

40 


THE  GREAT  BRIGADE 

what  is  more,  it  will  give  each  man  time  to 
run  in  across  coimtry  and  get  a  few  last 
drinks.  Some  of  them  will  come  back  to  be 
confessed  by  their  priest.  Some  will  want  to 
send  supplies  to  their  families  who  are  left 
behind.  On  one  excuse  or  another  every  man 
of  the  brigade  will  be  back  here  in  town 
to-night  if  we  should  start!  Of  course  by 
to-morrow  morning  they'll  be  on  hand  again 
bright  and  early  and  ready  for  the  voyage. 
You  see,  there  are  customs  up  here  with  which 
we  have  not  been  acquainted  before." 

It  came  out  precisely  as  Uncle  Dick  had 
said.  Very  late  in  the  afternoon — late  by  the 
clock,  though  not  so  late  by  the  sim,  which 
at  this  latitude  sank  very  late  in  the  west — 
there  came  a  great  shouting  and  outcry, 
followed  by  firing  of  guns,  much  as  though  a 
battle  were  in  progress.  Men,  hurrying  and 
crying  excitedly  as  they  ran,  went  aboard  the 
boats.  One  after  another  the  mooring-ropes 
were  cast  off.  The  poles  and  oars  did  their 
work,  and  slowly,  piecemeal,  but  in  a  vast 
aggregate,  the  great  Mackenzie  brigade  was 
on  its  way! 

The  first  boat  of  the  fleet,  as  had  been  pre- 
dicted, ran  no  more  than  three  or  four  miles 
before  it  pulled  ashore  at  a  landing-place 
which  seemed  well  known  to  all.     Here  the 

41 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

scows  came  in  slowly  and  cliimsily,  but  with- 
out disorder  and  without  damage,  imtil  the 
entire  bank  for  a  half-mile  was  turned  into  a 
sort  of  shipyard  of  its  own. 

Here  and  there  men  were  working  the  little 
wooden  pvimps,  because  for  the  first  day  or 
two  the  scows  were  sure  to  leak. 

The  boys  made  their  own  camp  that  m'ght 
aboard  the  boat.  At  each  end  was  a  short 
deck,  and  that  in  the  rear  offered  space  for 
their  blanket  beds.  Rob  tmdertook  to  sleep 
on  top  of  the  cargo  under  the  edge  of  the 
great  tarpaulin  which  covered  all.  They 
had  their  little  Yukon  stove,  which  accom- 
panied them,  and  on  the  front  deck,  where 
a  box  of  earth  had  been  provided,  they  set 
this  up  and  did  their  own  cooking,  as  they 
preferred. 

In  the  morning  Father  Le  Fevre  paddled 
over  to  them  in  a  canoe  from  his  own  scow. 

'^ Bon  jour,  gentlemen!"  said  he.  "I  called 
to  ask  you  if  you  would  not  like  to  have  break- 
fast with  us.  Sister  Eloise  is  known  for  her 
skill  in  cookery." 

The  leader  of  our  little  party  accepted  with 
great  cheerfulness,  so  that  they  all  climbed 
into  the  canoe,  and  presently  were  alongside 
the  mission  scow.  All  over  the  great  fleet  of 
scows  everything  now  was  silent.    Each  boat 

42 


THE  GREAT  BRIGADE 

had  its  watchman,  but  he  alone,  of  all  the 
crew,  had  remained  aboard. 

"My  poor  children!"  said  Father  Le  Fevre, 
smiling  as  he  looked  about  him.  '  *  They  indeed 
are  like  children.  Presently  they  will  come. 
Then  we  shall  see." 

Our  young  travelers  now  became  acquainted 
with  yet  others  of  the  north-bound  party. 
Sister  Eloise,  stout  and  good-natured,  proved 
herself  all  that  had  been  promised  as  a  cook. 

"Yes,  yes,  she  has  gone  north  before,"  said 
the  good  Father.  "But  always  she  has  fear 
of  the  water.  When  we  go  on  the  rapids  Sister 
Eloise  knits  or  tells  her  beads  or  reads — very 
hard  indeed  she  reads  or  knits  or  prays!  She 
is  afraid,  but  does  not  like  me  to  know  it," 
and  his  eye  twinkled  as  he  spoke. 

"Sister  Vincent  de  Paul  goes  north  for  the 
first  time,"  he  said,  smiling  now  at  the  other 
of  the  gray-habited  nuns  who  foimd  them- 
selves in  these  strange  surroimdings.  "She 
is  called  to  Fort  Resolution,  and  may  stay 
there  for  some  years.    We  do  not  know. 

"And  here,"  he  added,  pulling  up  by  the 
ear  a  swarthy  little  boy  who  seemed  more 
Indian  than  white,  "this  we  will  call  Charl'. 
We  are  taking  him  back  to  his  father,  who  is 
the  factor  at  Resolution.  His  mother  is 
native  woman,  as  you  see,  and  this  boy  has 

43 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

been  at  Montreal  for  two  years  at  school. 
Eh  bien,  Charl',  you  will  be  good  boy  now? 
If  not  I  shall  tell  your  pa-pa! 

"You  see,"  he  explained  to  the  others  who 
now  for  the  first  time  were  getting  some  ac- 
quaintance of  this  mission- work,  "we  try 
to  do  the  best  we  know,  and  to  make  life 
easier  for  these  people  in  the  Far  North.  It  is 
a  hard  fortune  that  they  have.  Always  they 
starve — never  have  they  enough.  And  every 
year  the  great  brigade  goes  north  so  that  they 
may  last  yet  another  year." 

Presently  there  came  down  overland  to  the 
fleet  yet  other  men  who  made  part  of  the 
strange,  wild  company.  Cap.  Shott,  friendly 
and  paternal  in  his  way,  brought  on  for  in- 
troduction to  the  party  the  Dominion  judge, 
who  every  year  goes  north  to  settle  the  legal 
disputes  which  may  have  arisen  at  the 
several  posts  for  a  considerable  distance  to  the 
north.  The  judge  had  with  him  his  clerk  and 
secretary,  and  there  was  also  a  commissioner, 
as  well  as  another  official,  a  member  of  the 
Indian  Department,  who  was  boimd  north  to 
pay  the  tribesmen  their  treaty  money. 

There  came  also  the  wife  of  a  member  of  the 
Anglican  Church,  which,  as  well  as  the  Catho- 
lic Church,  has  missions  all  along  the  great 
waterway  almost  to  the  Arctic  Sea.    So  that, 

44 


THE  GREAT  BRIGADE 

as  may  be  seen,  the  personnel  of  the  brigade 
that  year  was  of  varied  and  interesting 
composition. 

All  came  out  as  Uncle  Dick  and  Father  Le 
Fevre  had  said — by  the  time  breakfast  was 
over  the  half-breed  boatmen  began  to  come 
down  at  a  trot  overland  from  the  town. 
Few  of  them  had  slept.  All  of  them  had  been 
drinking  most  of  the  night.  They  came  with 
their  heads  tied  up,  their  eyes  red,  each  man 
looking  tmcomfortable,  but  they  all  went 
aboard  and  made  ready  for  their  work.  Father 
Le  Fevre  shook  his  head  as  he  looked  at  them. 

"Too  bad,  too  bad,  my  children!"  said  he, 
"but  you  will  not  learn,  you  will  not  learn  at 
all.  However,  two  days  on  the  river  and 
your  heads  will  be  more  clear.  Providence 
has  arranged,  I  presimie,  that  there  shall  be 
two  or  three  days'  travel  between  the  landing 
and  the  Grand  Rapids.  Else  fewer  of  our 
boats  would  get  through!" 

As  the  scows  swimg  out  into  the  river, 
imder  no  motive  power  excepting  that  of  the 
ciurent,  the  men  arranged  themselves  for  the 
long  journey,  each  to  suit  himself,  but  under 
a  loose  sort  of  system  of  government.  At  the 
long  steering-sweep,  made  from  a  spruce  pole 
twenty  feet  in  length,  stood  always  the  steers- 
man, holding  the  scow  straight  in  the  ciirrent. 

45 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

The  ten  tons  of  luggage  was  piled  high  in  each 
scow,  and  all  covered  with  a  great  tarpaulin 
to  protect  the  cargo  of  side-meat,  salt,  sugar, 
floiir,  and  steel  traps,  cloth,  strouds,  other 
rough  supplies,  as  well  as  the  better  stock 
of  trade  goods — prints,  powder,  ball,  rifles, 
matches,  a  scant  supply  of  canned  goods — and 
such  other  additions  to  the  original  stock  as 
modem  demands  instituted  by  the  inde- 
pendent traders  for  the  most  part  had  now 
made  necessary  in  the  traffic  with  the  tribes. 
That  year,  indeed,  a  few  hand  sewing- 
machines  went  north,  and  some  phono- 
graphs —  things  of  wonder  to  the  ignorant 
native  of  that  far-off  land. 

The  progress  of  the  boats,  although  steady, 
seemed  very  slow,  and,  as  there  was  no  work 
to  do,  the  men  amused  themselves  as  best 
they  might.  There  were  several  fiddlers  in  the 
fleet,  and  now  and  then,  as  the  Midnight  Sun 
swept  down,  well  handled  by  the  commodore, 
Frangois,  they  passed  a  scow  on  whose  bow 
deck  a  scantily  clad  half-breed  was  dancing 
to  the  music  of  the  violin.  Now  and  again 
across  the  water  came  the  curious  droning 
song  of  the  Cree  steersmen,  musical  but  wild. 

The  great  brigade  was  off  on  its  start  for 
the  long  journey  from  the  Rockies  to  the  icy 
sea,  contintiing  one  more  year  of  the  wild 

46 


THE  GREAT  BRIGADE 

commerce  which  had  become  a  part  of  the 
land  itself  for  more  than  a  century  now. 

"It's  wonderful  —  wonderful!"  said  Rob, 
looking  about  him  at  the  strange  scene  on  that 
morning  of  their  first  day  of  actual  travel. 
'T've  never  seen  a  thing  more  fascinating 
than  this.  I'm  sure  this  is  going  to  be  the 
best  trip  we've  ever  had. 

"I  tell  you  what,"  he  added,  a  moment 
later,  turning  to  the  leader  of  their  little 
party,  "I  believe  I'll  try  to  keep  a  Httle  diary 
for  a  little  while  at  least;  it  might  be  nice  to 
have  a  few  notes  to  refer  to.  I  doubt  if  any 
of  us  will  ever  make  this  trip  again." 

' '  An  excellent  idea !"  said  his  imcle .  ' '  That's 
the  way  to  get  yoiu*  information  soaked  into 
your  head.  Write  it  down,  and  be  careful 
what  you  write.  Your  notes,  together  with 
John's  maps,  are  things  you  will  prize  very 
much  indeed,  later  in  life." 

Rob,  indeed,  did  fulfil  his  promise,  be- 
ginning that  very  day,  and  perhaps  a  few 
notes  taken  from  his  diary  may  be  of  interest, 
as  showing  what  actually  happened  as  re- 
corded by  himself. 

"May2gth. — Off  late.  Ran  three  miles. 
Men  went  back  to  town.  Found  sacks 
of  sugar  made  a  hard  bed.    Mosquitoes. 

47 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

''May  30th. — The  grand  start  of  the 
big  brigade.  Running  maybe  four  or 
five  miles  an  hour.  Banks  getting  lower. 
Cottonwoods,  some  briilee  (burned-over 
forest).  Supper  6  P.M.  Ran  until  9.45 
P.M.     Damp  camp. 

"  May  31st. — d'ff  at  6.  In  the  morning 
men  on  the  first  boat  killed  a  cow  moose 
and  two  calves.  No  game  laws  north  of 
53°.  Men  rejoice  over  meat.  Eight 
mission  scows  in  fleet,  which  carry  eight 
to  ten  tons  each.  Father  Le  Fevre  says, 
except  for  whitefish,  all  northern  missions 
would  perish.  At  2.15  stopped  at  Pelican 
Portage,  at  head  of  Pelican  Rapids, 
120  miles  below  the  landing.  Head  winds 
yesterday,  but  favorable  now.  Two  boats 
collided,  and  one  damaged.  Saw  two 
dogs  carrying  packs — first  pack-dogs  I 
ever  saw.  Priest  baptized  an  Indian 
baby  here.  I  suppose  this  is  what  the 
brigade  goes  north  for,  in  part.  Lay 
here  imtil  7  in  the  evening,  and  then  off 
for  our  first  rapids,  the  PeHcan.  Rough, 
but  not  so  bad  as  Columbia  Big  Bend 
Rapids.  An  eighteen-foot  canoe  would  go 
through;  twelve-foot  doubtful.  Scows 
do  it  easily.  Fast  work  close  to  the  shore 
part  of  the  way.  Men  know  their  busi- 
48 


THE  GREAT  BRIGADE 

ness.  Some  system  to  the  brigade.  Camp 
at  foot  of  rapids.  Much  excitement. 
Scows  crowding  one  another.  Many 
mosquitoes. 

''June  1st,  Sunday. — No  travel  to-day. 
All  of  the  boatmen  are  Catholics.  The 
priest  put  up  a  little  chapel  and  said  Mass. 
Curious  scene  to  see  all  these  half-savages 
kneeling,  hats  off,  on  the  ground.  After 
Mass  a  good  many  of  them  got  their  hair 
cut;  one  or  two  men  can  do  barbering- 
work.  The  judge  and  legal  party  played 
cards  all  the  afternoon.  John  seems  to 
eat  more  than  ever.  A  good  many 
mosquitoes. 

''June  2d. — Off  at  6,  which  seems  reg- 
ular starting-time.  Ashore  for  limch 
11.30.  Slow  and  lazy  work  floating 
down,  but  pleasant.  Tied  up  at  6  for 
supper.  Much  excitement  now,  as  we 
are  coming  down  to  the  head  of  Grand 
Island,  where  we  make  the  big  portage. 
After  supper  made  a  mile  or  so  through 
shallow  water  among  many  rocks,  to  the 
head  of  the  island.  It  is  low  and  rocky, 
covered  with  cottonwoods,  should  think 
about  a  mile  long,  and  not  over  half  a  mile 
wide.  Very  fierce  water  to  the  left,  with 
quiet  water  above.  No  boat  ever  ran  the 
49 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

left  channel  alive.  Many  lost  here  in  the 
Klondike;  they  went  into  that  quiet  and 
deep  water  on  the  left  and  got  caught. 
They  say  we  will  try  to  nm  the  right- 
hand  side.  Did  not  put  up  tent  to-night, 
but  slept  under  mosquito  tents.  A 
hundred  and  sixty-five  miles  from  Atha- 
basca Landing.  Now  we  begin  to  feel  as 
though  we  were  to  see  the  real  work." 


IV 

THE  GRAND  RAPIDS 

IT  was  much  as  Rob  had  predicted  In  the 
last  entry  of  his  diary  previously  quoted. 
Uncle  Dick  hurried  them  through  their  break- 
fast. 

"We'll  see  some  ftm  to-day,  boys,"  said  he. 

"How  do  you  mean?"  asked  Jesse.  "Are 
they  going  to  try  to  nm  the  boats  through?" 

"They'll  have  to  run  the  scows  through 
light,  so  Frangois  tells  me.  There  isn't  water 
enough  to  take  them  through  loaded,  so 
practically  each  one  will  have  to  unship  its 
cargo  here. 

"You  see  that  wooden  tramway  running 
down  the  island?"  He  pointed  toward  a 
crooked  track  laid  roughly  on  cross-ties,  the 
rails  of  wood.  "That  is  perhaps  the  least 
expensive  railroad  in  the  world,  and  the  one 
which  makes  the  most  money  on  its  capital. 
I  don't  think  it  cost  the  Company  over  eight 
hundred  dollars.    It  couldn't  be  crookeder  or 

SI 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

worse.  And  yet  it  pays  for  itself  each  year 
several  times  over,  just  by  the  outside  trade 
which  it  does! 

"They  built  this  railroad  after  the  Klondike 
rush  came  through  here.  Previous  to  that  all 
the  goods  had  to  be  taken  over  the  'short 
portage ' — you  see  that  place  over  on  the  steep 
hillside  at  the  right  side  of  the  river — a  mile 
and  a  half  of  it,  and  every  pound  of  the 
Company  and  Klondike  baggage  that  went 
north  had  to  be  carried  on  men's  backs  along 
that  slippery  footing.  It  was  necessary  to 
run  these  rapids  and  to  build  this  railroad. 
You  will  see  how  both  ideas  will  work  to-day." 

Some  of  the  boats  had  been  loaded  so 
heavily  that  part  of  the  cargo  had  to  be  left 
above  the  shallow  water — one  more  handling 
of  the  freightage  necessitated  in  the  north- 
boimd  journey,  but  each  boat,  carrying  as 
much  as  could  be  floated,  now  came  poling 
down  through  the  rocks  to  the  head  of  the 
island. 

The  men,  half  in  and  half  out  of  the  water, 
began  to  unload  this  cargo  and  to  pile  it  in  a 
great  heap  at  the  head  of  the  wooden  rail- 
road. There  were  two  flat-cars,  and  rapidly 
these  were  loaded  and  pushed  off  to  the  foot 
of  the  island,  half  or  three-quarters  of  a  mile. 
There  every  poimd  of  the  baggage  had  to  be 

52 


THE  GRAND  RAPIDS 

unloaded  once  more,  and  after  that  once  more 
carried  from  the  landing  into  the  boats  at  the 
foot  of  the  island. 

"Well,  are  they  going  to  take  the  boats 
down  on  the  cars,  too?"  demanded  Jesse. 

"They  have  done  that  for  others,"  answered 
Uncle  Dick,  "and  charged  them  ten  dollars 
a  boat  for  doing  it,  too.  But  as  I  said,  we'll 
have  to  run  our  scows  down  on  the  right-hand 
passage.    That's  the  ftm  I  was  talking  about." 

Rob  came  up  to  him  now  excitedly.  "Tell 
me.  Uncle  Dick,  can't  I  go  through — couldn't 
I  go  through  with  you  in  the  very  first  boat?" 

His  uncle  looked  at  him  for  a  time  soberly 
before  he  replied.  "Well,  I  don't  like  to 
mollycoddle  any  of  you,"  said  he,  "but  I'll 
tell  you  what  we'll  do.  We'll  have  to  leave 
John  knd  Jesse  here  on  the  island.  If  Frangois 
says  it's  safe  I'll  let  you  go  through  with  me 
on  the  first  boat.  It's  no  place  for  us  to  be  in 
this  coimtry  if  we're  going  to  sidestep  every 
little  bit  of  risk  there  is.  That  isn't  a  manly 
thing  to  do.  But  the  other  two  boys  will 
have  to  wait  for  a  while. 

"There's  bad  news,"  he  said  to  Rob,  a 
little  later,  aside.  "Word  has  just  come  up 
by  canoe  from  the  Long  Rapids  below  here 
that  four  men  were  drowned  day  before 
yesterday.  They  were  going  down  to  Me- 
ss 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

Mtirray,  and  although  they  had  a  native  pilot 
they  got  overttimed  in  the  rapids  and  couldn't 
get  out.  The  Mounted  Police  are  looking  for 
the  bodies  now." 

It  was  with  rather  sober  faces  that  ouf 
young  travelers  now  watched  the  boatmen 
at  their  portage-work,  although  the  latter 
themselves  were  cheerftd  as  always,  and  en- 
gaged, as  before,  in  friendly  rivalry  in  feats  of 
strength.  Ever5rthing  was  confusion,  yet 
there  was  a  sort  of  system  in  it,  after  all,  for 
each  man  was  busy  throughout  the  long  hoiurs 
of  the  day.  As  a  scow  came  in  its  cargo  was 
rapidly  taken  out,  as  rapidly  piled  up  ashore, 
and  quite  as  rapidly  flung  on  top  of  the  fiat- 
cars  for  transport  across  the  great  portage. 

Our  yoimg  adventurers  saw  with  interest 
that  a  good  many  of  the  boatmen  were  quite 
yoimg,  boys  of  fifteen,  sixteen,  and  eighteen 
years  of  age.  Some  of  these  latter  did  the  full 
work  of  a  man,  and  one  slight  chap  of  seven- 
teen, with  three  sacks  of  flour,  and  another 
youth  of  his  own  weight  on  top  of  it  all,  stood 
for  a  time  supporting  a  staggering  weight  of 
several  hundred  pounds  while  Jesse  fimibled 
with  his  camera  to  make  a  picture  of  him. 

At  about  eleven  o'clock  in  the  morning  of 
the  second  day  Uncle  Dick  came  to  Rob  and 
drew  him  aside. 

54 


THE  GRAND  RAPIDS 

"The  first  boat  is  going  through,"  said  he. 
*'Fran9ois  will  take  it  down.  It's  a  Company 
scow  with  about  a  quarter  of  its  cargo  left  in. 
Cap.  Shott  says  it  is  all  right.  Are  you  still 
of  a  mind  to  go,  or  do  you  want  to  stay  here?" 

"Not  at  all,  sir!"  rejoined  Rob,  stoutly. 
"I'll  go  through,  of  course." 

So  presently  they  both  stepped  into  the 
lightly  loaded  scow  which  lay  at  the  head  of 
the  island.  The  men  consisted  of  the  steers- 
man, Frangois;  a  bowman,  Pierre;  and  four 
oarsmen.  They  all  were  stripped  to  trousers 
and  shirts.  At  a  word  from  Francois  the  boat 
pushed  out,  the  men  poling  it  through  the 
maze  of  rocks  at  the  head  of  the  island  to  a 
certain  point  at  the  head  of  the  right-hand 
channel  where  the  ciurent  steadied  down  over 
a  wide  and  rather  open  piece  of  water. 

The  bowman  carried  in  his  hand  a  long 
lance-like  shaft  or  pole,  and  stood  with  it 
upon  the  short  bow  deck.  At  the  stem  of  the 
boat  there  was  a  plank  laid  across  which 
acted  as  a  bridge  for  the  commodore,  Frangois, 
who  walked  back  and  forward  across  it  as  he 
worked  his  great  steering-oar,  which  ran  out 
at  the  back  of  the  scow. 

If  the  men  had  any  anxiety  about  their 
tmdertaking,  they  did  not  show  it.    Francois 
Bmoked  calmly.    It  was  to  be  noted  that  Cap. 
5  55 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

Shott  did  not  go  through  on  the  first  boat, 
but  remained  on  the  shore.  The  skill  of  his 
wild  calling  had  been  passed  down  to  the  next 
generation. 

Francois  at  last  gave  a  short  word  or  so  of 
command  in  Cree.  The  oarsmen  straightened 
out  the  boat.  Frangois  motioned  now  to  all 
the  occupants  to  keep  to  the  side,  so  that  he 
would  have  a  clear  view  ahead. 

Little  by  little,  as  the  current  caught  it, 
the  scow  began  to  slip  on  faster  and  faster. 
By  and  by  waves  began  to  come  up  along- 
side, almost  to  the  gunwale.  Rob  had  the 
vague  impression  that  this  boat  was  made  of 
astonishingly  thin  boards,  and  that  the  water 
made  a  great  noise  upon  it.  Under  the  oars 
it  creaked  and  strained  and  seemed  very 
frail. 

The  men  were  silent  now,  but  eager. 
Frangois,  pipe  in  mouth,  was  very  calm  as  he 
stood  at  the  oar,  his  eyes  fixed  straight  ahead. 

About  half-way  down  the  side  of  the  island 
came  the  most  dangerous  part  of  the  run. 
Suddenly  the  bowman  sprang  erect  and  cried 
out  something  in  Cree,  pointing  sharply 
almost  at  right  angles  to  the  course  of  the 
boat.  Francois  gave  a  few  quick  orders  and 
the  oarsmen  swinig  hard  upon  one  side.  The 
head   of   the   scow   swimg   slowly   into   the 

56 


THE  GRAND  RAPIDS 

current.  The  channel  here,  however,  passed 
between  two  great  boulders,  over  the  lower  one 
of  which  the  river  broke  in  a  high  white  wave. 
It  was  the  duty  of  the  steersman  to  swing  the 
boat  between  these  giant  rocks,  almost  straight 
across  the  course  of  the  river,  a  feat  of  ex- 
treme difficulty  with  such  a  craft  or  indeed 
with  any  craft.  This  was  the  bad  place  in 
the  channel  always  known  as  ''The  Turn." 

It  seemed  to  Rob  as  if  the  whole  river  now 
was  eager  to  accomplish  their  destruction. 
He  was  certain  that  the  scow  would  be  dashed 
upon  the  rocks  and  wrecked. 

It  was  dashed  upon  the  rocks!  The  turn 
was  not  made  quite  successfully,  because  of 
the  too  great  weight  of  the  cargo  left  in  this 
boat.  With  a  crash  the  scow  ran  high  up  on 
the  lower  rock,  and  lay  there,  half  out  of  water, 
apparently  the  prey  of  the  savage  river.  Rob 
felt  a  hand  laid  upon  his  shoulder. 

"Steady,  old  chap!"  said  Uncle  Dick. 
"Keep  quiet  now.     We're  still  afloat." 

This  accident  seemed  to  be  something  for 
which  the  men  were  not  altogether  un- 
prepared. If  they  were  alarmed  they  did 
not  show  it.  There  were  a  few  quick  words  in 
Cree,  to  be  sure,  but  each  man  went  about 
his  work  methodically.  Under  the  orders  of 
Frangois  they  shifted  the  cargo  now  to  the 

57 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

floating  side  of  the  boat.  All  of  the  men 
except  two  or  three  pole-men  took  that  side 
also.  Then,  imder  command,  with  vast  heav- 
ing and  prying  on  the  part  of  the  pole-men,  to 
the  surprise  of  Rob  at  least,  the  boat  began 
to  groan  and  creak,  but  likewise  to  slide  and 
slip.  Little  by  little  it  edged  down  into  the 
current,  imtil  the  bow  was  caught  by  the 
sudden  sweep  of  the  water  beyond  and  the 
entire  craft  swimg  free  and  headed  down  once 
more!  It  seemed  to  these  new-comers  as  an 
extraordinary  piece  of  river  work,  and  such 
indeed  it  was.  A  stiffer  boat  than  this  loose- 
built  scow  might  have  broken  its  back  and 
lost  its  cargo,  and  all  its  crew  as  well.  As  it 
was,  this  boat  went  on  down-stream,  carrying 
safely  all  its  contents. 

Rob  drew  a  long  breath,  but  he  would  not 
show  to  the  men  any  sign  that  he  had  been 
afraid. 

Here  and  there  among  the  rocks  the  oars- 
men, under  the  commands  of  the  steersman, 
picked  their  way,  the  lower  half  of  the  passage 
being  much  more  rapid.  On  ahead,  the  river 
seemed  to  bend  sharply  to  the  left.  Now  Rob 
saw  once  more  the  bowman  spring  to  his  feet 
on  his  short  forward  deck.  CalHng  out  ex- 
citedly, he  pointed  far  to  the  left  with  his 
shaft.      Rob    looked    on    down-stream,    and 

S8 


THE  GRAND  RAPIDS 

there,  a  mile  and  a  half  below,  he  saw  erected 
against  a  high  bank  a  diamond-shaped  frame 
or  target.  At  this  the  bowman  was  pointing 
directly  with  his  lance.  It  was  the  target  put 
up  there  after  the  Klondike  disasters  by  the 
Moimted  Police,  and  indicated  the  course  of 
the  safe  channel  at  the  lower  end  of  the  chute. 

Frangois,  pipe  in  mouth,  calmly  swung  his 
sinewy  body  against  the  steering-oar.  The 
bow  of  the  boat  crawled  around  to  the  left, 
far  off  from  the  island,  toward  the  shore, 
where  was  a  toboggan-like  pitch  of  very  fast 
but  safe  water  for  a  distance  of  some  hundreds 
of  yards. 

As  they  entered  the  head  of  this  chute,  the 
bowman  still  crouching  with  his  pole  poised, 
it  seemed  to  Rob  that  he  heard  shouts  and 
cries  from  the  island,  where,  indeed,  all  those 
left  behind  were  gathered  in  a  body,  waiting 
for  the  first  boat  in  the  annual  brigade  to 
go  through — something  of  an  event,  as  they 
regarded  it. 

But  Rob's  eyes  were  on  ahead.  He  saw  the 
boat  hold  its  course  straight  as  an  arrow 
toward  the  great  target  on  the  farther  bank. 
With  astonishing  speed  it  coasted  down  the 
last  incline  of  the  Grand  Rapids.  Then, 
imder  the  skilful  handling  of  steersman  and 
oarsmen,  the  boat  swimg  to  the  right,  around 

59 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

a  sort  of  promontory  which  extended  around 
the  right-hand  bank.  Rob  looked  around  at 
Uncle  Dick,  who  was  curiously  regarding 
him.  But  neither  spoke,  for  both  of  them 
knew  the  etiquette  of  the  wilderness — not  to 
show  excitement  or  uneasiness  in  any  unusual 
or  dangerous  circumstances. 

Francois,  who  had  narrowly  regarded  his 
young  charge,  now  smiled  at  him. 

"  Dot  leetle  boy,  she  is  good  man,"  he  said  to 
Uncle  Dick.     "He'll  is  not  got  some  scares." 

Rob  did  not  tell  him  whether  or  not  this 
was  the  exact  truth,  but  only  smiled  in  turn. 

''Well,  here  we  are,"  said  he.  "But  what 
good  does  it  do  us?  There's  the  foot  of  the 
island  up  there,  three  or  four  hundred  yards 
away  at  least.  And  how  can  we  get  a  boat 
up  against  these  rapids,  I'd  like  to  know? 
Right  here  is  where  both  the  big  chutes  join. 
It  would  take  a  .steamboat  to  get  up  there." 

Frangois,  who  imderstood  a  little  English, 
did  not  vouchsafe  any  explanation,  but  only 
smiled,  and  Uncle  Dick  gravely  motioned 
silence  as  well.  Rob  could  see  the  eyes  of 
Francois  fixed  out  midstream,  and,  following 
his  gaze,  he  presently  saw  some  dark  object  bob- 
bing about  out  therCj  going  slowly  down-stream. 

"Look,  Uncle  Dick!"  he  cried.     "What's 

that?    It  looks  like  a  seal." 

60 


THE  GRAND  RAPIDS 

The  latter  shook  his  head.  "No  seals  in 
here,"  said  he.     "That  must  be  a  log." 

"So  it  is,"  said  Rob.  "But  look  at  it— it's 
stopped  now." 

No  one  explained  to  him  what  all  this  meant. 
Frangois  sprang  to  his  steering-oar  and  gave 
some  swift  orders.  The  boat  swung  out  from 
the  bank,  and  under  the  sweeps  made  straight 
out  midstream,  where  the  black  object  now 
bobbed  at  the  edge  of  the  slack  w^ater.  Rob 
could  see  what  had  stopped  it  now — it  was 
made  fast  by  a  long  rope,  which  was  in  turn 
made  fast  somewhere  up-stream,  he  could 
not  tell  where. 

With  a  swiit  pass  of  his  pole  the  bowman 
caught  the  rope  as  the  boat  swimg  near. 
Rapidly  he  pulled  in  the  short  log  and  made 
fast  the  rope  to  the  bow  of  the  boat.  The  scow 
now  swung  into  the  current,  its  head  pointed 
up-stream,  and  hung  stationary  there,  sup- 
ported against  the  current  by  some  unseen 
power.  To  Rob's  surprise,  the  oarsmen  now 
took  in  their  oars. 

"Well,  now,  what's  going  to  happen?"  he 
asked  of  Uncle  Dick. 

But  the  latter  only  shook  his  head  and 
motioned  for  silence. 

Slowly  but  steadily  the  scow  now  began  to 

ascend  the  river,  to  breast  the  white  waters 

6i 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

which  came  rolling  down,  to  surmount  the 
full  force  of  the  current  of  the  Athabasca 
River  in  its  greatest  rapids! 

Rob  glanced  on  ahead.  He  could  see  a  long 
line  of  men  bending  under  the  great  rope 
which  had  been  floated  down  to  them  in  this 
curious  way.  They  walked  inshore,  steadily 
following  the  line  of  the  railroad  track  for 
almost  a  quarter  of  a  mile,  as  it  seemed  to  the 
other  boys  who  watched  this  proceeding 
ashore. 

Steadily  the  boat  climbed  up  the  river,  and 
now,  with  the  aid  of  the  oarsmen  and  the 
steersman,  it  finally  came  to  rest  at  a  sheltered 
little  cove  at  the  foot  of  the  island,  in  slack 
water,  where  the  landing  was  good  and  cargo 
could  easily  be  transhipped. 

Rob  and  his  older  companions  stepped 
ashore,  and  each  smiled  as  he  looked  at  the 
other. 

"Don't  tell  me,  son,"  said  Uncle  Dick, 
"that  these  people  don't  know  their  business! 
That's  the  finest  thing  I've  ever  seen  in  rough- 
neck engineering  in  all  my  life — and  I've  seen 
some  outdoor  work,  too." 

He  stood  now  looking  up  the  white  water 

down  which  they  had  come,  and  at  the  rough 

hillside  beyond  where  the  old  portage  had  lain 

in  earlier  days. 

62 


THE  GRAND  RAPIDS 

"  It's  the  only  way  it  could  have  been  done !" 
said  he.  "You  see,  these  fellows  don't  cany  a 
pound  that  they  don't  have  to,  but  they  don't 
risk  losing  a  cargo  by  trying  to  run  through 
with  full  load  when  the  water  won't  allow  it. 
They  don't  get  rattled  and  they  know  their 
business.    It's  fine — fine!" 

"That's  what  it  is,  sir,"  said  Rob.  "I 
never  saw  better  fun  in  all  my  life." 

By  this  time  Jesse  and  John  came  nmning 
up,  and  the  boys  fell  into  one  another's  arms, 
asking  a  dozen  questions  all  at  once. 

"Weren't  you  awfully  scared?"  said  Jesse, 
somewhat  awed  at  Rob's  accomplishment. 

"Well,"  said  Rob,  truthfully,  "I  did  a  good 
deal  of  thinking  when  we  went  fast  on  that 
rock  out  there  in  the  middle.  That  was 
pretty  bad." 

"Uncle  Dick,"  called  out  John,  excitedly 
now.  "Say,  now,  it's  no  fair  for  Rob  to  go 
through  and  us  others  not.  Can't  we  go  with 
the  next  boat?" 

Uncle  Dick  stood  looking  at  them  quietly 
for  a  time,  his  hands  in  his  pockets. 

"You  wait  awhile,"  said  he.  "There'll  be 
forty  or  fifty  boats  going  through  here.  Time 
enough  later  to  see  whether  it's  safe  for  you 
two  yoimgsters  to  risk  it." 


WHITE-WATER  DAYS 

FOR  three  days  the  work  of  portaging  on 
the  Grand  Island  continued  steadily, 
boat  after  boat  going  down  to  the  head  of  the 
island  to  discharge,  then  taking  the  nin 
through  the  channel  of  the  right-hand  side. 
Some  excitement  was  shown  when  in  the  still 
water  at  the  head  of  the  murderous  left-hand 
chute,  which  never  was  attempted  by  the 
voyageurs,  a  roll  of  bedding  with  a  coat  tied  to 
it  was  seen  floating  in  the  current.  It  was 
supposed  that  somewhere  up  the  river  an 
accident  had  occurred,  but,  as  it  was  im- 
possible to  tell  when  or  where,  no  attempt 
was  made  to  solve  the  mystery,  and  the  labor 
of  advancing  the  brigade  northward  went  on 
without  further  delay. 

As  the  boys  watched  the  river-men  at  their 
hard  and  heavy  work,  they  came  more  and 
more  to  respect  them.  Throughout  long 
hours  of  labor — and  in  this  northern  latitude 

64 


WHITE-WATER  DAYS 

the  sun  did  not  set  until  after  nine  o'clock — 
there  was  never  a  surly  word  or  a  complaint 
heard  from  any  of  them. 

John,  who  seemed  to  care  for  facts  and 
figures,  began  to  ask  about  the  wages  which 
these  men  received  for  this  hard  labor.  He 
was  told  that  they  were  paid  by  the  trip  from 
Athabasca  Landing  to  IVIcMurray,  which 
covered  the  bad  water  to  the  head  of  steam- 
boat transport.  The  steersmen  for  the  roim.d 
trip  received  about  eighty  dollars  and  their 
board,  and  the  river-men  forty  to  fifty  dollars. 
All  walked  back  across  coiintry,  a  shorter 
distance  than  that  by  water.  Some  of  the 
men  had  along  on  the  scows  the  large  dogs 
which  they  used  in  the  winter-time,  and  which 
they  now  purposed  to  employ  in  packing  a 
part  of  their  loads  on  the  return  journey. 

John  also  discovered  that  the  cargo  of  a 
scow  averaged  about  twenty-five  hundred 
dollars  in  value,  and  that  it  would  cost  some- 
times almost  a  third  of  that  amount  to  deliver 
the  freight  at  its  destination.  For  instance, 
the  charge  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  for 
freight  from  Athabasca  Landing  to  Fort 
ISIcPherson  was  thirteen  dollars  and  fifty 
cents  per  hundred  pounds.  For  the  use  of  the 
little  railroad  a  quarter  of  a  mile  in  length  on 
the  island  itself  the  chaise  to  outsiders  was 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

one  dollar  a  ton,  and  ten  dollars  for  every 
boat  taken  across  on  the  cars. 

All  the  boys  now  began  to  learn  more  of 
the  extreme  risk  and  waste  of  this,  the 
north-bovind  transit.  It  was  not  unusual,  as 
they  learned,  for  a  scow  to  be  lost  with  all  its 
cargo,  in  which  case  the  post  for  which  it  was 
destined  would  need  to  go  without  supplies 
until  the  brigade  came  north  in  the  following 
year.  Damage  to  goods  from  wetting,  damage 
to  boats  from  collisions — all  these  things  went 
into  the  large  figiu-es  of  cost  which  were  to  be 
set  against  the  figures  of  the  large  gain  in  this 
commerce  of  the  Far  North. 

John  got  many  of  his  figures  from  the  Hud- 
son's Bay  Company  clerk,  a  young  man 
stationed  here  on  Grand  Island  throughout 
the  season,  who  was  very  friendly  to  all  the 
strangers  in  the  coimtry.  He  expressed  him- 
self as  very  glad  to  see  the  brigade  come  north, 
for  it  was  the  only  interesting  time  in  his 
season's  work.  He  and  one  associate  remained 
here,  cut  off  from  the  world,  all  through  the 
summer  season,  and  he  was  not  very  happy, 
although,  as  he  said,  he  was  president  and 
general  traffic-manager,  as  well  as  superin- 
tendent and  board  of  directors,  of  his  railroad, 
and  section  boss  as  well.  His  duties  were  to 
have    general    charge    of    the    transport    of 

66 


WHITE-WATER  DAYS 

cargoes  at  the  island,  and  to  keep  a  record  of 
the  day's  doings. 

Boat  after  boat  now  went  through,  as  has 
been  said,  but  without  accident,  although  one 
or  two  hung  up  at  The  Turn,  as  the  danger- 
ous passage  between  the  two  great  rocks  in 
midstream  now  was  called  by  all.  Below  that, 
as  Rob  expressed  it,  the  bottom  dropped  out 
of  the  river  and  the  boat  traveled  very  fast. 

John  timed  some  of  the  boats  through,  and 
found  that  it  took  about  eight  minutes  from 
the  head  of  the  eddy  to  the  bottom  of  the 
chute.  This  Rob  could  hardly  believe,  as  he 
said  that  when  he  went  through  it  seemed  not 
more  than  two  minutes  at  the  outside. 

John  and  Jesse  grew  very  grumpy  over  the 
prestige  Rob  had  gained  by  his  journey 
through  the  rapids,  and  besought  Uncle  Dick 
to  allow  them  also  to  make  the  passage.  Late 
in  the  third  day,  when  most  of  the  boats  were 
through,  they  renewed  their  importimities, 
and  he  finally  replied: 

"Well,  yoimg  men,  I've  about  concluded 
to  let  you  go  through  with  the  last  boat. 
Frangois  says  that  he  has  been  watching  you 
all,  and  believes  that  you  would  not  get 
'some  scares.'  He  says  he  will  take  you 
through  in  yotir  own  boat,  which  will  be  the 
last  one  of  the  brigade.    The  river  has  come 

67 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

up  three  or  four  inches  since  we  struck  in, 
and  he  says  we  can  run  through  without  un- 
shipping much,  if  any,  of  our  cargo,  which 
doesn't  amount  to  very  much.  Rob  has  made 
the  trip,  and  I  figure  now  that  we  are  all  in  the 
same  boat  together.  Sometimes  it  is  necessary 
to  be  either  a  man  or  a  mouse.  I  want  to  see 
you  grow  up  men.    Well,  are  you  ready  now?" 

All  the  boys  gladly  said  that  they  were, 
Rob  insisting  on  accompanying  the  boat  once 
more,  as  indeed  was  necessary,  since  there 
would  be  no  transport  after  that. 

They  took  ship  at  the  head  of  the  island, 
and  were  tooled  across  the  shallow  water  to 
the  head  of  the  rapids  on  the  farther  shore. 
Here  the  men  all  disembarked  and  sat  silently 
along  the  edge  of  the  bluff,  taking  one  of  the 
pipe-smokeswhich  make  so  regiilar  a  part  of  the 
voyageur's  day's  employment.  They  seemed 
to  get  some  sort  of  comfort  out  of  their  pipes, 
and  almost  invariably  when  undertaking  any 
dangerous  enterprise  a  quiet  smoke  was  a 
part  of  the  preparation. 

Frangois  talked  to  them,  meantime,  seeing 
that  they  were  eager  to  learn  about  the 
customs  of  this  strange  and  wild  country  into 
which  they  now  were  going.  He  told  them, 
motioning  to  the  steep  hillside  on  the  right  of 
the  channel,  that  in  the  old  times  he  used  to 

68 


WHITE-WATER  DAYS 

pack  stuff  across  the  mile-and-a-half  portage 
there  for  fifty  cents  a  hundred  pounds.  It 
was  hard  work,  and  yet  he  made  it  pay. 
When  they  began  to  portage  on  the  island, 
and  not  along  the  mountain-side,  he  had  made 
as  much  as  fifty  dollars  a  day,  for  he  got  five 
dollars  for  taking  a  boat  through  the  rapids, 
or  thirty  dollars  for  running  it  down  to  Fort 
McPherson;  so  that  a  season's  work  would 
bring  him,  in  very  good  years,  over  a  thousand 
dollars,  if  he  worked. 

"But  yong  man,  she  spend  the  mon'," 
said  he,  smiling. 

John  set  down  in  his  book  the  facts  and 
figures,  the  date  of  1871,  which  was  the  time 
when  old  Cap.  Shott  first  ran  a  boat  tlirough 
the  Grand  Rapids.  Since  that  time  a  few 
other  pilots  had  come  on  who  proved  able  to 
handle  scows  in  white  water.  But  old  Cap. 
Shott  and  his  long-time  friend,  Louis  La 
Vallee,  were  now  both  of  them  old — "h'almost 
h'eighty  year,  she  is,  each  of  him,"  said 
Frangois. 

"Well,  now,"  he  added  at  length,  "we  will 
ron  h'on  the  rapide.'" 

He  rose  and  motioned  to  his  men,  who 
once  more  took  their  places  at  the  oars,  as  they 
had  in  the  boat  which  carried  Rob  through. 
Again  the  bowman  squatted  on  his  short  fore 

69 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

deck.  Frangois,  the  steersman,  stood  on  his 
plank  walk  at  the  handle  of  the  great  steering- 
oar.  Gently  they  pushed  out  from  shore,  the 
last  boat  of  the  brigade. 

"Here  goes  the  Midnight  Sunr  cried  Jesse, 
waving  his  hat. 

Uncle  Dick  watched  them  closely  as  the 
boat  advanced.  The  boys  spoke  little  or  not 
at  all,  and  John  later  accused  Jesse  of  trying 
to  pinch  a  piece  out  of  the  side  of  the  boat, 
he  held  on  so  tight.  But  not  one  of  them 
showed  the  white  feather,  nor  made  any 
trouble  for  the  men  in  their  work  of  rtmning 
the  fast  water. 

The  boat  at  first  ran  along  gently,  the  little 
waves  lapping  along  the  sides  smartly,  but 
not  excitingly.  Then  at  the  end  of  the  lower 
third  the  water  gained  in  speed  very  much. 
At  The  Turn  the  waves  were  no  doubt  ten  feet 
high.  Frangois,  with  a  great  sweep  of  his  oar, 
fairly  flimg  the  boat  athwart  the  current 
here,  and  the  passage  was  made  with  no  more 
than  a  scraping  on  the  dangerous  lower  rock — 
the  one  which  Uncle  Dick  called  Scylla.  The 
upper  one  he  called  Charybdis. 

''You'll  learn  what  those  two  words  mean 
when  you  go  to  school  a  little  later,"  said  he, 
smiling. 

Once  beyond   The  Turn  John  and  Jesse 
70 


WHITE-WATER  DAYS 

tinderstood  perfectly  well  what  Rob  had 
meant  by  saying  that  the  bottom  fell  out  of 
the  river.  They  were  excited,  but  had  no 
thought  of  fear  by  the  time  they  entered  the 
last  chute  where  the  scow  tobogganed  down 
to  the  foot  of  the  island.  A  moment  later  it 
was  at  rest  once  more  in  the  eddy  below  the 
promontory. 

Rob  explained  now  about  the  log  float  which 
had  carried  the  rope  down  to  their  boat  when 
he  first  went  through.  There  was,  however, 
no  longer  need  for  the  float  to  carry  down  a 
line  to  the  boat.  The  brigade  was  through 
and  the  last  scow  below  the  island.  The 
clerk  and  his  taciturn  companion  were  left 
alone.  They  stood  now,  both  of  them,  waving 
their  hats  to  the  occupants  of  the  Midnight 
Sun  as,  after  a  little,  at  the  command  of 
Frangois,  she  pushed  out  from  the  eddy  and 
took  her  place  in  the  long  procession  of  the 
north-bound  brigade,  every  man  of  which  now 
felt  a  sense  of  relief,  since  the  most  dangerous 
part  of  the  early  journey,  the  portage  of  the 
Grand  Rapids  of  the  Athabasca,  had  been 
safely  accomplished. 

The  flotilla  was  now  strung  out  over  many 

miles  of  water,  but  it  was  the  intention  to 

make  several  miles  additional  before  stopping 

for   the   night.     In   the   late   twilight,   here 

6  71 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

strangely  long  and  bright,  Rob  went  on  with 
his  notes  in  his  diary,  while  John  worked  at 
his  map,  charting  as  best  he  could  the  right- 
hand  channel  through  which  they  had  made 
their  exciting  journey.  Rob's  notes  later 
proved  of  interest  to  his  friends,  as  they 
explained  very  much  about  the  journey  of  this 
dangerous  two  hundred  and  fifty  miles  of  the 
white-water  transport. 

"  Wednesday,  June  4th.  —  Everybody 
busy  all  day.  At  5  p.m.  most  of  the 
freight  on  the  island,  and  getting  loaded 
on  cars.  Slept  in  the  little  mosquito 
tents.    Very  busy  day. 

"Thursday,  June  5th. — Many  pictures 
to-day,  and  we  all  were  busy.  Curious 
work  running  boats  through  the  rapids 
and  getting  boat  back  to  end  of  island.  I 
think  that  rope  that  they  let  down  to  the 
boat  is  almost  a  quarter  of  a  mile  long.  It 
takes  twenty  men  or  more  to  haul  a  boat 
up  against  the  rapids,  empty,  of  course. 

"Off  in  the  Mid^iiglit  Sun  below  the 
island  late  afternoon.  Ran  the  Httle 
Grand  Rapids,  and  swung  into  the  Second 
Eddy  for  supper.  After  that  ran  seven 
miles.  Camp  ground  very  bad.  Mosqui- 
toes getting  worse. 

72 


WHITE-WATER  DAYS 

"  Friday,  June  6th. — A  great  many 
rapids  to-day.  The  Buffalo  seems  mild 
to  us  after  the  Grand.  The  Brule  Rapids 
we  liked  because  they  had  some  pep  to 
them.  At  about  3  p.m.  we  hit  the  Boiler 
Rapids,  which  is  one  of  the  worst.  Name 
because  a  scow  was  lost  here  that  was 
carrying  a  boiler  up  north.  The  boiler 
has  never  been  recovered.  Rapids  full 
of  boulders,  and  in  low  water  very  bad. 
Not  very  dangerous  at  this  stage.  Every- 
body was  still  as  we  went  through  this 
place  and  came  into  what  they  called 
the  Rapids  of  the  Drowned.  They  say  a 
great  many  men  have  been  drowned 
there,  and  it  certainly  looked  bad.  These 
two  rapids  are  about  a  mile  and  a  half 
altogether. 

' '  Four  boats  were  tied  back  because  not 
everybody  can  run  these  rapids.  Our 
boat  was  in  the  lead.  Then  four  pilots 
walked  back  to  bring  through  the  boats 
which  had  been  held  up.  We  made 
pictures  of  them  as  they  came  through. 
Supper  at  5  as  we  floated  along,  and  then 
we  dropped  into  the  Middle  Rapids  and 
had  a  beautiful  time. 

"One  or  two  canoes  ran  through  with 
breeds.  Pretty  exciting.  They  say  few 
73 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

of  these  breeds  can  swim,  but  they 
don't  seem  to  mind  that.  Saw  several 
wrecks  of  scows  along  the  shores  here, 
and  one  boat  upset  in  the  middle  of  the 
rapids.  Some  machinery  on  shore  below 
rapids,  very  rusty.  Begin  to  understand 
why  freight  comes  high.  Sometimes  half 
a  cargo  is  wasted  or  lost.  No  farms,  no 
horses,  no  cows.  A  good  game  country. 
They  say  the  game  and  fish  keep  the 
white  men  alive.  The  little  boy  Charl' 
keeps  with  the  good  Sisters.  He  was 
scared  going  through  the  rapids,  and  so 
were  they. 

"On  the  Long  Rapids,  as  we  passed 
through,  we  saw  the  fresh  grave  of  one 
of  the  men  who  was  drowned  here  the 
other  day.  Only  one  body  was  foimd. 
Their  canoe  was  all  broken  up. 

"  On  the  Crooked  Rapids  we  saw  where 
the  men  have  to  track  the  boats  going 
up-stream.  Don't  see  how  they  keep  from 
falling  off  the  bank.  Below  the  Crooked 
come  the  Stony  Rapids,  and  what  the 
boatmen  call  the  Dive,  a  sudden  dip 
down  of  three  or  four  feet.  Sometimes 
boats  ship  seas.  Scenery  this  evening 
bold  and  interesting.  Some  cliffs.  Fast 
water  all  day.     Camp  at  8  o'clock  on  a 

74 


WHITE-WATER  DAYS 

good  high  bluff.  Mosquitoes  not  quite 
so  bad.  Nights  cool.  This  ended  the 
most  glorious  day  I  ever  spent  out  of 
doors,  I  believe. 

''Saturday,  June  yth. — Beautiful  weath- 
er. Passed  cliffs  where  they  say  there  is 
oil.  I  don't  know.  We  heard  heavy 
rapids  below,  and  at  7  a.m.  got  into 
them.  They  call  this  the  Little  Cascade. 
A  ledge  runs  across  the  river.  At  9 
o'clock  we  came  to  one  of  the  big  jumps 
on  the  river  known  as  the  Grand  Cascade. 
About  the  worst  man-trap  there  is  in  low 
water,  they  say.  We  concluded  to  run 
her.  Oiu-  boat  goes  first.  Some  boats  tie 
back  to  wait  for  our  pilots.  There  are 
three  good  pilots  to  eight  boats.  Many 
pictures  of  boats  running  the  Cascade, 
which  drops  eight  or  ten  feet  like  a  mill- 
dam.  W-'onderful  what  these  men  can  do 
with  the  boat. 

"Now  three  or  four  small  rapids  which 
I  don't  mind,  then  at  11.45  we  struck 
Mountain  Rapids,  which  made  little 
Charl'  'get  some  scares,'  as  Frangois 
says.  Sometimes  we  eat  on  the  boat.  I 
asked  Father  Le  Fevre  if  he  had  prayed 
for  high  water,  and  he  said  yes.  Then  I 
asked  him  what  he  did  if  high  water 
75 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

didn't  come.  He  said,  '  My  son,  although 
in  that  case  I  prayed  for  high  water, 
perhaps  God  likewise  took  another  way 
to  show  His  power,  and  so  saved  us  out 
of  even  greater  danger  and  discomfort.' 
He's  a  bird. 

"The  Moberly  Rapids  don't  amount 
to  much.  We  ran  them  at  1.30 — the  last 
on  the  great  chain  of  rapids,  so  they  say. 
In  about  fifteen  minutes  we  could  see 
Fort  Mc Murray  on  ahead.  Many  scows 
were  lying  along  the  shore,  mostly  loaded, 
some  empty.  Climbed  up  a  steep  hill  to 
a  fine  flat  on  top  of  the  bluff.  Woods  all 
around.  A  fine  site  for  a  town,  and  the 
Indians  have  it.  The  flat  was  covered 
with  tepees,  also  some  tents.  There  were 
dogs  and  dogs  and  babies  and  babies 
everjrwhere,  with  squaws  and  Indian  men 
walking  around  all  dressed  up  in  their 
best.  The  Indian  agent  is  going  to  pay 
their  treaty  money.  It  is  only  eight 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars  altogether — 
not  very  much,  I  think.  Hear  a  lot  of 
talk  about  lands  and  towns  and  railroads 
and  oil. 

"There  are  some  Chippewyans  here, 
and  a  lot  of  Crees,  but  these  northern 
Indians  don't  speak  the  Cree  language. 
76 


WHITE-WATER  DAYS 

Got  my  moccasins  mended.  Made  some 
pictures.  The  Grahame  is  the  name  of 
the  H.  B.  steamboat  which  is  going  to 
take  us  down  the  river  from  here.  We 
will  tow  oiu"  scow  and  sleep  on  the  steam- 
boat.   Monday  morning  is  when  we  start. 

"Sunday,  June  8th. — The  treaty  pay- 
ment goes  on,  although  it  is  Siuiday. 
Indian  men  sitting  down  on  the  grass 
before  the  commissioner.  He  asks  each 
one  what  right  he  has  to  claim  money 
from  the  Great  Father,  I  suppose.  Once 
in  a  while  he  turns  to  the  clerk  and  says, 
'We'll  give  this  old  duffer  twenty  bucks.' 
This  doesn't  look  to  me  like  very  much 
money.  I  don't  think  they  get  much 
help.  They  are  poor  and  dependent. 
If  they  couldn't  rustle  well  out  of  doors 
they  all  would  die.  Much  trade  finery 
among  the  natives,  who  dress  very  bright. 
Several  Northwest  Mounted  Policemen  in 
red- jacket  uniform  who  go  north  with 
us  on  the  boat.  She  is  going  to  be 
crowded.  The  judge  and  his  party  are 
going  on  the  scows. 

"Well,  this  is  the  end  of  the  scow- work 
for  us,  so  it  seems.  Uncle  Dick  thinks 
we  will  be  more  comfortable  on  the 
steamer,  and  will  see  more  people  to  talk 

77 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

to  than  if  we  stuck  to  our  own  scow.  We 
will  tow  her  alongside.  I  hope  they 
will  let  us  run  through  the  Smith's  Land- 
ing portage,  on  the  Little  Slave,  a 
hundred  miles  below  here.  I  never  had  a 
better  time  in  my  life  than  the  first  250 
miles.  The  mosquitoes  don't  bother  us 
quite  so  much.  John  eats  a  great  deal, 
and  Jesse  is  getting  fat.  Having  a  bully 
time." 


VI 

ON  THE   STEAMBOAT 

AS  Rob  indicated  in  his  diary,  the  start 
L  from  McMurray  was  made  early  on 
Monday  morning,  but  the  stop  was  long 
enough  for  the  boys  to  gain  an  idea  of  the  im- 
portance of  this  busy  frontier  settlement. 
Here  also  came  in  the  Clearwater  River, 
down  which,  by  way  of  a  chain  of  lakes,  all 
the  brigade  traffic  used  to  come  before  the 
discovery  that  the  Grand  Rapids  themselves 
could  be  rtin.  When  it  is  remembered  that 
the  start  was  made  from  Athabasca  Landing 
on  May  29th,  and  the  arrival  at  McMurray 
on  June  7th,  it  will  be  seen  that,  crude  as  the 
system  and  the  means  of  transport  had  been, 
a  great  deal  of  results  had  been  attained.  Rob 
figured  that  at  the  rate  of  two  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  a  week  they  would  not  get  very 
far,  but  Uncle  Dick  pointed  out  that  now, 
since  they  had  reached  steamer  transport,  the 
journey  would  advance  very  rapidly. 

79 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

The  steamboat,  after  its  start,  passed  the 
string  of  scows,  among  which  were  some  boats 
of  independent  traders,  and  a  few  hardy  ad- 
venturers boimd  north,  for  what  purpose  they 
hardly  knew. 

The  Grahame  advanced  steadily  and  rapidly 
down-stream.  Some  of  the  passengers  ex- 
citedly tried  to  point  out  to  Uncle  Dick  the 
value  of  the  oil-lands  in  this  part  of  the  world, 
but  Uncle  Dick  only  smiled  and  said  he  was 
out  for  a  good  time,  and  not  building  rail- 
roads now. 

The  weather  grew  quite  warm,  and  in  the 
state-rooms  the  boys  foimd  that  the  thermom- 
eter stood  at  ninety  degrees.  With  one  step 
for  wood  at  a  yard  where  the  natives  had 
piled  up  enormous  quantities  of  cord  wood, 
the  boat  tied  up  after  making  perhaps  sixty 
miles. 

On  the  following  day  she  continued  her 
steady  progress  down-stream  between  the 
green-lined  shores.  The  banks  of  the  river 
now  grew  lower  and  lower,  and  by  nine 
o'clock  in  the  evening,  at  which  time  it  still 
was  light,  there  began  to  show  the  marshes  of 
the  Peace  River  Delta,  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant deltas  in  all  the  world.  The  boat  ran 
on  into  the  night,  and  before  midnight  had 
passed  the  mouths  of  the  Quatre  Fourches,  or 

80 


ON  THE   STEAMBOAT 

Four  Forks,  which  make  the  mouth  of  the 
Peace  River. 

The  boys  wondered  at  the  great  marshes 
which  now  they  saw,  and  Uncle  Dick  ex- 
plained to  them  that  here  was  one  of  the 
greatest  wild-fowl  breeding-grounds  in  all  the 
world. 

"If  there  were  any  way  in  the  world  for 
sportsmen  to  get  up  here,"  said  he,  "this 
country  would  soon  be  famous,  for  it  certainly 
is  a  wilderness.  Here  is  where  the  natives 
shoot  wild  geese  for  their  winter's  meat.  And 
as  for  ducks,  there  is  no  numbering  them." 

Every  one  sat  on  the  decks  of  the  boat  late 
at  night,  and  we  may  rest  assured  that  the 
boys  were  on  hand  when  finally  the  Grahame 
swiuig  to  her  moorings  along  the  rocky  shore 
of  historic  Fort  Chippewyan. 

In  the  morning  they  went  ashore  eagerly 
and  gazed  with  wonderment  over  the  wild 
scene  which  lay  all  about.  The  point  where 
they  landed  was  a  rocky  promontory.  Before 
it  lay  high,  rocky  islands,  among  which  ran 
the  channels  of  the  two  great  rivers  which 
here  met  in  the  great  waters  of  Athabasca 
Lake. 

"Just  to  think,"  said  Rob  to  his  friends, 
"this  post  here  was  founded  a  hundred  and 
forty-three  years  ago.    My,  but  I'd  have  liked 

8i 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

to  have  been  with  old  Sir  Alexander  at  that 
time!  He  ought  to  have  a  monument  here, 
it  seems  to  me,  or  some  sort  of  tablet;  but 
there  isn't  a  thing  to  tell  about  his  having 
found  this  place  or  done  anjrthing  extraordi- 
nary." 

"I  wonder  how  much  these  natives  here  are 
going  to  get  in  the  way  of  treaty  money," 
said  John,  as  he  saw  the  commissioner  again 
putting  up  his  tent  with  the  flag  of  his  country 
above  it.  "There  are  a  lot  of  canoes  coming 
in  from  everywhere,  so  they  say — fifty  Cree 
boats  from  their  camp.  They  tell  me  that  the 
Crees  and  Chippewyans  don't  mix  any  too 
well.  I  think  the  Crees  have  got  them  scared 
when  it  comes  to  that." 

"Well,  these  dogs  have  got  me  scared," 
complained  Jesse.  "I  never  saw  so  many 
dogs  in  all  my  life.  And  there  isn't  a  cow 
anywhere  in  the  world,  nor  even  a  goat  or 
sheep." 

"They  have  to  have  these  dogs  in  the 
winter-time,  you  understand,"  said  John, 
paternally.  "They  pull  as  much  as  a  team 
of  horses  would  in  the  snow." 

"Yes,  and  they  eat  as  much  as  a  horse 
would,"  said  Jesse.  "The  bacon  for  Fort 
Resolution  was  unloaded  here  last  night,  and 
the  dogs  ate  up  more  than  a  ton  of  it;  there's 

82 


ON  THE  STEAMBOAT 

nothing  left  there  except  a  lot  of  paper  and 
pieces  of  canvas!  I'll  bet  it's  the  first  time 
these  dogs  here  ever  had  a  square  meal  in 
their  lives!" 

"I  don't  know  about  that,"  said  Rob, 
laughing.  "Look  over  yonder."  He  pointed 
to  where  an  Indian  woman  sat  on  the  groimd, 
cleaning  a  lot  of  fish.  Around  her  squatted  a 
circle  of  gaunt,  wolfish  creatures  which  seemed 
ready  to  devour  her  and  her  fish  alike. 

Uncle  Dick  joined  their  group  as  they 
wandered  around,  and  explained  such  things 
as  they  did  not  understand. 

"This  is  one  of  the  greatest  posts  of  all  the 
fur  trade,"  said  he.  "It  is  the  center,  as  you 
have  learned,  of  a  lot  of  the  native  tribes  in 
this  part  of  the  world.  It  ships  from  here  an 
enormous  amount  of  fur  which  the  traders 
collect.  The  independent  traders  are  break- 
ing in  here  now,  but  the  natives  learn  to  catch 
more  and  more  fur,  so  it  seems.  I  suppose  in 
time  it  will  be  exterminated.  Then  the 
natives  will  go,  too. 

"Over  yonder  is  a  tombstone,  but  not  any 
monument  for  Sir  Alexander.  It  tells  about 
the  life-history  of  an  old  factor  who  lived  here 
for  so  long  in  this  wilderness.  It's  all  old, 
old,  old — older  almost  than  any  city  in  the 
United  States,  or  at  least  older  than  a  great 

&3 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

many  of  oiir  considerable  cities.  But  you 
would  think  this  was  at  the  beginning.  There 
are  the  natives,  and  there  are  the  dogs,  just 
as  they  were  when  Sir  Alexander  came  through. 
Perhaps  they  didn't  have  so  much  calico  then. 
Of  course  they  didn't  have  repeating-rifles 
then,  and  surely  not  steel  traps.  But  they 
talked  the  same  language,  and  in  my  opinion 
they  had  about  as  much  religion  then  as  they 
have  now." 

"What's  that  boat  out  there  with  a  sail 
on  it?"  demanded  Rob,  after  a  time,  pointing 
to  a  small  craft  which  was  moored  near  by. 

"Goodness  only  knows',"  replied  Uncle  Dick. 
"There  are  all  sorts  of  fool  adventurers  in  the 
world,  and  they  take  all  sorts  of  fool  chances. 
I  have  heard  that  there  are  a  half-dozen 
prospectors  in  that  schooner,  going  north, 
they  don't  know  where  nor  why. 

"Well,  at  least  we  can  say  we're  in  the 
North  here,"  he  added.  "They  get  just  nine 
mails  a  year  at  Chippewyan,  about  foiu"  mails 
in  and  the  rest  of  them  go  out.  In  the  summer- 
time mail  service  runs  about  once  a  month. 

"They  say  they  did  have  a  horse  in  here 
two  years  ago,  and  that  it  ran  off,  and  they 
did  not  find  it  for  two  years.  They  had  a 
team  at  Fort  McMurray,  and  it  was  lost,  too. 
I  wouldn't  call  this  a  good  horse  coimtry 

84 


ON  THE   STEAMBOAT 

myself!  No,  it's  a  fur  country  and  an  Indian 
country.  That's  why  it's  interesting  to  us, 
isn't  it?" 

"Well,"  said  John,  "we  ought  to  get  some 
pictures  of  the  treaty  pa^nnents  to  the  Indians 
to  show  our  folks  back  home  how  they  live 
up  here.  I  wish  I  had  brought  along  twice  as 
many  rolls  of  film  as  I've  got.  I  never  get 
tired  of  making  pictures  of  dogs  and  Indians." 

"Well,  when  you  are  photographing  Indians 
study  Indians,  too,"  said  Uncle  Dick.  "  Most 
people  look  at  Indians  just  as  an  object  of 
curiosity,  but  he  may  be  quite  a  fellow,  even  so. 
For  instance,  there  are  these  Crees  sitting  over 
there  in  the  grass  before  the  flag,  waiting  for 
their  treaty  money.  They  flock  by  them- 
selves, quite  distinct  from  the  Chippewyans; 
they  don't  camp  within  three  miles  of  each 
other.  As  you  know,  the  Crees  are  of  the 
Algonquin  family.  They  have  pushed  west 
all  the  way  from  eastern  Canada,  following 
the  fur  trade.  They  have  followed  up  the 
Red  River  and  down  the  Athabasca,  and  they 
have  ovemm  all  the  intervening  tribes  and 
elected  themselves  chiefs  and  bosses  pretty 
much.  You  may  call  the  Cree  half-breed  the 
mainstay  of  all  the  northern  fur  trade. 

"But   now,"   he   added,    "we   are   getting 
beyond  the  country  even  of  the  Crees.    Here 

8s 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

at  Chippewyan  is  the  farthest  north  of  the 
Cree  so  far.  Now  we  are  going  to  find  a  lot 
of  other  different  tribes." 

The  boys  passed  here  and  there  along  the 
rocky  shore  among  the  villages  of  the  natives 
and  among  the  stoutly  built  log  houses  of  the 
fur-post  itself.  Here  and  there  a  woman  was 
sitting  in  front  of  her  tent,  trying  to  operate 
one  of  the  little  cheap  hand  sewing-machines 
which  had  been  brought  on  for  the  first  time 
that  year.  In  another  tent  strange  sounds 
came  which  seemed  familiar  to  the  boys.  They 
discovered  that  a  proud  family  had  purchased 
a  cheap  phonograph,  and  under  the  instruction 
of  one  of  the  clerks  was  proceeding  to  produce 
what  is  sometimes  called  melody.  These 
things,  however,  did  not  interest  the  young 
adventurers  so  much  as  the  more  primitive 
scenes  of  the  native  life. 

Here  they  saw  a  boatman  fresh  from  his 
nets,  with  half  a  boat-load  of  fish  still  alive, 
throw  out  some  of  the  live  fish,  among  them  a 
number  of  pickerel,  or  Great  Northern  Pike,  to 
his  dogs,  which  sat  waiting  on  the  shore  for 
his  arrival.  A  dog  would  seize  a  five-pound 
fish  by  the  head,  kill  it,  and  eat  it  outright, 
bones  and  all. 

"They  never  get  enough  to  eat,"  said  John. 
"They're  himgry  all  the  time." 

86 


ON  THE   STEAMBOAT 

"Well,"  said  Jesse,  laughing,  "that's  the 
same  way  with  you,  isn't  it,  John?" 

"That's  all  right,"  said  John,  testily.  " I'm 
growing,  that's  why  I  eat  so  much.  But  as 
for  you,  Jesse,  you'd  better  keep  away  from 
these  dogs.  Do  you  know  what  I  heard? 
It  was  old  Colin  Frazer,  the  fur-trader,  told 
me.  He  said  there  was  a  child  killed  last 
winter  out  on  the  ice  by  dogs,  and  they  ate  it 
up,  every  bit.  You  see,  it  had  on  a  caribou 
coat,  and  it  was  alone  at  the  time.  The  dogs 
killed  it  and  ate  it.  Sometimes  they  eat  little 
dogs,  too.  They'll  eat  anything  and  never 
get  enough.  But  I  suppose  they  have  to 
have  dogs  here  the  same  as  they  have  to  have 
Indians,  else  they  could  have  no  fur  trade." 

"The  old  trader  up  at  the  post  is  mighty 
crusty,  it  seems  to  me,"  complained  Jesse, 
after  a  time.  "He  won't  let  me  go  up  in  the 
fur-loft,  where  he  keeps  his  silver-gray  foxes 
and  all  that  sort  of  thing,  to  make  any 
pictures.     What's  the  reason  he  won't?" 

Rob  smiled  as  he  answered :  ' '  The  Hudson's 
Bay  Company  is  a  big  monopoly  and  it  keeps 
its  own  secrets.  You'll  have  to  ask  a  good 
many  questions  before  you  find  out  much 
about  its  business.  And  if  you  should  try 
to  buy  even  one  skin  of  an  ermine  or  a  marten 
or  a  fox  or  a  mink  in  here,  you  couldn't  do  it. 

7  87 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

They  wouldn't  sell  you  anything  at  all.  Per- 
haps some  of  the  independent  traders  who  are 
coming  in  might  sell  you  some  furs  for  your- 
self— at  a  very  good  price.  But  the  old 
Company  stands  pat  and  nms  its  affairs  the 
way  it  used  to.    It  doesn't  tell  its  secrets." 

The  boys  stood,  hands  in  pockets  now, 
toward  the  close  of  their  interesting  day  at 
Chippewyan,  looking  in  silence  at  the  squared 
logs  of  the  whitewashed  Company  buildings. 
A  certain  respect  came  into  their  minds. 

"It's  old/'  said  John,  after  a  time.  "They 
don't  seem  to  rustle  very  much  now,  but  they 
have  done  things — haven't  they?" 


VII 

THE   WILD   PORTAGE 

ACCORDING  to  Rob's  diary,  it  was  on 
J\  Friday,  June  13th,  that  the  steamer 
Grahame  left  the  ancient  trading-post  of 
Chippewyan  on  the  rocky  shores  of  Athabasca 
Lake.  Rob  also  made  the  curious  entry  that 
as  the  boat  left  shore  two  ravens  flew  across 
its  bow,  and  that  the  Indians  and  half-breeds 
were  very  much  distressed  over  what  they 
considered  a  bad  omen.  Uncle  Dick  and  his 
two  companions,  Jesse  and  John,  laughed 
with  Rob  at  this,  and,  indeed,  no  ill  fortune 
seemed  to  attend  them. 

By  this  time  the  great  brigade  had  begim 
to  thin  a.nd  scatter.  Several  scows  were  un- 
loaded and  left  at  Chippewyan.  Yet  others 
were  despatched  for  the  post  at  the  eastern 
side  of  the  lake.  The  legal  party  and  the 
Indian  Commissioner  now  parted  company 
with  our  travelers.  But  occasionally,  as  the 
steamer  swept  away  from  the  high  and  bold 

89 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

shores  on  which  the  old  trading-post  lay,  and 
passed  the  vast  marshes  where  the  wild-fowl 
nest  in  millions  every  year,  they  found  in  the 
main  current  of  the  river  scattered  odds  and 
ends  of  river  traffic,  now  and  then  a  brigade 
scow,  or  the  shapeless  boat  of  some  prospector 
going  north,  he  knew  not  how  or  where. 

Continually,  however,  the  impression  of  the 
deepening  of  the  wilderness  fell  upon  our 
party  as  they  pushed  on  steadily  dov/n-stream 
between  the  low  timbered  banks  of  the  river. 
John  now  noted  on  his  map  that  this  river, 
the  outlet  of  Lake  Athabasca,  which  received 
the  combined  floods  of  the  Peace  and  the 
Athabasca,  was  known  as  the  Slave  River,  or 
sometimes  the  Little  Slave  River. 

As  had  been  the  Athabasca  all  the  way 
down,  this  river  was  very  much  discolored  and 
stained  by  the  high  waters  of  the  spring. 

"Now,  young  men,"  said  Uncle  Dick  to  his 
charges  as  they  stood  on  the  fore  deck  of  the 
steamer  in  the  hot  sun  of  midaftemoon, 
*'you  can  say  that  you  are  getting  into  the 
real  wilderness.  It  nms  every  way  you  can 
look — ^west,  north,  south,  and  east.  From 
where  we  are  now,  draw  a  circle  large  as  you 
like,  and  you  will  embrace  in  it  thousands  of 
miles  of  coiuitry  which  no  man  really  knows. 
Trust  not  too  much  even  in  the  Dominion 

90 


THE  WILD  PORTAGE 

maps.  I'd  rather  trust  John's  map,  here, 
because  he  doesn't  have  to  guess." 

"Well,"  said  John,  looking  up  from  his  own 
work  with  his  papers,  "it  doesn't  seem  such  a 
very  wild  trip  now,  traveling  along  on  the 
steamboat.  It  might  as  well  be  along  the 
Alaska  shore,  or  even  on  the  Hudson  River — 
if  the  things  we  had  to  eat  were  better." 

"Never  you  mind  about  all  that,"  rejoined 
his  imcle.  "If  you  want  to  see  wild  work 
with  a  thrill  to  it,  you  shall  have  all  you  care 
for  within  the  next  few  days.  To-morrow 
we'll  be  at  Smith's  Landing,  which  marks  the 
sixteen-mile  portage  of  the  Slave  River.  I 
suppose  in  there  you'll  see  the  wildest  water 
in  the  world,  so  far  as  boating  is  concerned. 
I'll  warrant  you  you'll  think  you  are  in  the 
wilderness  when  you  see  the  Cassette  Falls 
and  any  of  a  hundred  others  between  Smith's 
Landing  and  the  Mountain  Portage.  I've 
been  talking  with  the  boat  captain  about 
those  things." 

Rob  looked  up  from  the  book  which  he  was 
reading.  "It  says,"  remarked  he,  "that  Sir 
Alexander  Mackenzie  knew  all  this  country 
as  far  down  as  the  big  portage  here." 

"Quite  likely,"  replied  Uncle  Dick.  "The 
truth  is  that  all  of  this  early  exploration  which 
comes  down  to  us  in  history  was  perhaps  not 

91 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

so  difficiilt  as  it  sounds.  There  is  continual 
trading  back  and  forward  among  the  Indian 
tribes,  even  when  they  are  hostile  to  one 
another.  Sir  Alexander  no  doubt  heard  from 
each  of  these  various  tribes  all  about  their 
country  as  far  north  as  the  next  tribe.  Then 
that  tribe  in  turn  could  give  him  advice  and 
guidance.  So  he  was  passed  on,  much  as 
Lewis  and  Clark  were,  or  Major  Long,  or 
Captain  Pike,  in  our  own  explorations.  Nearly 
all  the  time  he  had  a  native  guide  to  tell  him 
what  he  might  expect  on  ahead. 

"One  thing  sure,"  he  added,  "from  all 
they  tell  me  about  the  rapids  of  the  Slave 
at  Smith's  Landing,  he  would  have  had  a 
hard  time  if  he  had  run  directly  into  the  big 
current  at  the  head  of  the  falls  without  any 
warning.  But  I  suppose  for  hundreds  of  years 
the  natives  hereabouts  have  known  about 
those  falls,  and  natiu-ally  that  would  be  the 
first  thing  they  would  tell  any  new  man  in  the 
country." 

It  was  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening  of  Jime 

14th,  at  the  end  of  a  cold  and  dull  day's 

travel,  that  the  boys  foimd  themselves  in  the 

Big  Eddy  along  the  bank  of  the  post  known 

as  Smith's   Landing.     This  spot  is  directly 

above  the  Great  Falls  of  the  Slave  River,  and 

marks  the  place  for  unloading  of  the  cargoes 

92 


THE  WILD  PORTAGE 

of  the  boats  which  must  be  portaged  across 
the  sixteen  miles  of  land,  or  taken  down  by  the 
hazardous  passage  through  the  rapids  them- 
selves. 

As  the  boat  with  its  warning  whistle  drew  up 
alongside  the  shore  there  thronged  down  to 
the  side  of  the  landing  the  usual  crowd  of 
natives,  a  few  white  men,  many  half-breeds, 
and  coimtless  dogs.  On  the  bank  above  stood 
the  usual  row  of  whitewashed  buildings  which 
marked  the  Hudson's  Bay  post,  not  very  many 
in  all,  even  coimting  the  scattered  cabins  of 
the  population  which  had  drawn  in  about  this 
upper  post. 

"Two  things  you  will  observ^e  here,"  said 
the  leader  of  our  yoimg  adventurers.  "Smith's 
Landing  has  a  sidewalk,  and  Smith's  Landing 
also  has  a  team  of  horses!  You  may  mark 
this  place  as  farthest  north  for  the  domestic 
horse — you  will  not  see  another  one  north  of 
here.  They  have  to  have  this  team  to  get 
the  goods  across  by  wagon.  Sometimes,  too, 
they  track  a  scow  over,  I  believe,  although  the 
road  is  not  very  good." 

"Well,  how  did  they  come  to  have  that 
sidewalk?"  asked  John,  pointing  to  the  narrow 
and  unimportant  strip  of  walk  which  lay  in 
front  of  one  of  the  warehouses. 

Uncle  Dick  smiled.  "The  captain  of  the 
93 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

boat  told  me  that  they  wanted  some  telephone- 
poles  to  string  a  wire  from  here  across  to  Fort 
Smith,  over  the  portage.  So  the  wise  author- 
ities of  the  Company  had  Montreal  send  out 
enough  square-sawed  four-inch  joists  to  make 
poles  for  fifty  miles  of  telephone — and  right 
in  a  country  where  there  are  better  telephone- 
poles  than  you  could  get  at  Montreal!  So 
they  were  all  brought  through,  with  what 
trouble  you  can  imagine,  since  you  have  seen 
the  sort  of  transport  they  must  have  had 
coming  this  far.  The  factor  could  not  use 
them  all,  so  he  put  up  a  few  and  laid  the 
others  in  the  form  of  a  sidewalk.  I'll  say  it's 
lasting,  at  least! 

"As  for  those  horses,  however,"  he  con- 
tinued, "we'll  take  a  crack  at  them  ourselves 
if  we  have  luck.  You've  been  complaining 
that  things  are  not  exciting  enough,  and  I 
propose  to  give  you  a  touch  of  life.  After 
we  get  done  our  work  here — that  is  to  say, 
after  everybody  has  dnmk  up  all  the  Scotch 
whisky  that  has  come  north  on  this  boat — 
we'll  be  getting  on  about  our  business. 
We'll  take  our  scow  through. 

"I'm  going  to  contract  with  old  Johnny 
Belcore,  the  traffic-handler  here,  to  take  our 
boat  and  an  extra  scow  around  through  the 
rapids  of  the  Slave  River.     You'll  see  he'll 

94 


THE  WILD  PORTAGE 

ship  his  horses  along  to  use  on  the  portages, 
and  there'll  be  more  than  one  of  them.  It 
would  take  a  lot  of  men  to  track  one  of  these 
boats  up  the  bank  and  along  a  mile  or  so  of 
dry  ground.  They  tell  me  that  he  uses 
rollers  and  pulls  the  boats  by  horse  power. 
So,  as  that  is  one  more  example  of  the  way  the 
brigade  gets  its  goods  north,  we'll  use  that, 
if  only  for  the  sake  of  our  own  information." 

"That  '11  be  fine,"  said  Rob.  "I'd  much 
rather  do  that  than  climb  on  top  of  a  lumber- 
wagon  and  ride  across  sixteen  miles  of  muskeg. 
If  we  did  that  we'd  miss  all  the  excitement  of 
seeing  the  Big  Rapids  of  the  Slave.  I've  been 
reading  about  them.  You're  right,  this  is 
perhaps  as  bad  boat  water  as  any  actually 
used  by  men." 

"Do  you  suppose  it  is  worse  than  the 
White  Horse  Rapids  up  on  the  head  of  the 
Yukon?"  asked  John,  looking  up. 

Uncle  Dick  laughed  at  this.  "Son,"  said 
he,  "the  White  Horse  Rapids  could  be  lost  a 
thousand  times  here  in  the  falls  of  the  Slave 
River,  and  no  one  would  know  where  they 
went.  Those  rapids  got  their  reputation 
through  the  stories  of  tenderfeet,  for  the  most 
part.  They  don't  touch  the  Grand  Rapids 
of  the  Athabasca,  and  the  Grand  Rapids  don't 
touch  the  Slave.     She  drops  a  hundred  and 

95 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

sixty-five  feet  in  sixteen  miles !  You  can  figure 
what  that  means,  and  if  you  can't  figure  it 
we'll  see  it  with  our  own  eyes." 

"I  read  once  in  some  sort  of  a  magazine 
story,"  said  Rob,  "that  the  Peace  River 
buffalo  herd  is  somewhere  up  in  this  country, 
and  that  when  people  want  to  find  out  about 
it  they  go  to  Smith's  Landing." 

"That's  true,"  said  Uncle  Dick.  "That 
somewhat  mythical  herd  has  been  under  the 
more  or  less  mythical  charge  of  the  Dominion 
government  in  here  for  some  time.  It  isn't 
worth  while  for  us  to  make  a  trip  out  to  see  it; 
that  is  usually  done  by  parties  who  are  going 
back  from  here.  Nor  do  we  care  to  see  the 
celebrated  Dominion  government  reindeer 
herd  which  is  out  on  the  promontory  of  the 
Moimtain  Portage  below  here. 

"I  understand  there  were  about  a  dozen  of 
these  reindeer  once,  but  most  of  them  got  into 
the  river  and  swam  across.  The  last  report 
was  that  the  keeper  of  this  herd  had  only  one 
reindeer  left,  and  he  was  sitting  tight,  with 
several  Lapland  dogs  which  had  been  sent 
out  by  the  government!" 

"The  trouble  with  people  that  run  things," 
said  Rob,  judicially,  "is  that  sometimes  they 
don't  know  about  the  things  they  are  run- 
ning." 

96 


THE  WILD   PORTAGE 

"Well,  I  don't  see  why  they  sent  reindeer 
up  into  the  caribou  country,"  said  Jesse. 
"Of  course  I'm  only  a  boy,  but  I  can't  see 
why  they  do  that." 

Uncle  Dick  grinned.  "We  may  see  a  good 
many  things  we  can't  understand  before  we 
get  done  with  the  trip.  But  all  the  same  we'll 
have  a  good  time  finding  out. 

"You  may  sleep  ashore  to-night,  young 
men,"  he  said,  later,  "for  perhaps  you  would 
rather  not  lie  in  your  berths  on  the  boat.  The 
captain  tells  me  that  Smith's  Landing  is  famous 
for  its  mosquitoes — they  are  supposed  to  be 
worse  here  than  anywhere  else  on  earth." 

"Well,  that's  saying  a  good  deal,"  said 
John.  "I  didn't  know  there  were  so  many 
mosquitoes  in  all  the  world.  What  makes 
them,  anyhow,  and  what  do  they  have  them 
for.  Uncle  Dick?" 

That  gentleman  only  shrugged  his  shoulders 
and  spread  out  his  hands.  "It's  all  in  the 
game,"  said  he.  "You  must  learn  not  to 
kick.  Look  at  the  half-breeds  all  arotmd. 
How  hard  their  life  is,  and  what  punishment 
they  have  to  take  all  the  time.  Well,  they 
don't  kick.  One  great  lesson  of  this  trip  ought 
to  be  to  take  your  medicine  and  be  game  and 
quiet  as  well." 

The  boys  did  not  find  the  stop  at  Smith's 
97 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

Landing  of  special  interest,  for  there  was  so 

much  drunkenness  among  all  the  population 

that  they  became  quite  disgusted  at  the  sloth 

and  noisiness  of  it  all.    They  learned  through 

the  captain  that  while  liquor  is  not  allowed  to 

be  sold  generally  at  the  Hudson's  Bay  posts, 

among  natives,  the  government  does  allow  a 

"permit"  to  any  one  going  into  that  country, 

so  that  each  traveler  might  legally  take  a 

gallon   of   liquor   for   "medicinal   purposes.'* 

Sometimes  a  white  trader  or  employee  would 

be  allowed  to  import  each  year  a  gallon  of 

liquor   on   a    "permit."      The    captain    told 

one  instance,  more  gruesome  than  amusing, 

which  had  just  happened  that  week.    A  man 

at  Smith's  Landing  had  ordered  his  annual 

gallon  of  liquor,  but  meantime  he  had  died. 

As  he  could  not  use  the  liquor,  the  question 

arose   to   whom   did   it   belong.      That   was 

decided,  so  he  said,  by  a  game  of  cards  in  the 

warehouse  on  the  bank.     That  the  contents 

of  the  dead  man's  liquor-case  foimd  use  was 

easy  enough  to  see. 

The    tales    regarding    the    mosquitoes    at 

Smith's    Landing    proved    more    than    true. 

Our  young  travelers  found  that  the  best  of 

their  mosquito  dope  was  of  little  or  no  avail, 

so  that  they  wore  headnets  and  long  gloves 

almost  always. 

98 


THE  WILD   PORTAGE 

By  this  time  they  had  learned  to  manage 
their  sleeping-tents  so  that  they  could  keep 
out  the  insects  at  night,  and  lost  but  little 
sleep,  even  amid  the  continual  howling  of  the 
dogs  and  the  carousing  of  the  half-drunken 
population  of  the  place. 

Meantime,  albeit  slowly,  the  cargoes  of  the 
scows  and  of  the  steamer  were  being  portaged 
by  wagon  over  the  sixteen  miles  of  flat  tim- 
bered coimtry.  This  work  went  on  for  nearly 
a  week.  It  was  Thursday,  Jtme  19th,  when 
Uncle  Dick  announced  to  Rob  and  John  and 
Jesse  that  now  they  would  be  off  for  the 
exciting  enterprise  of  taking  their  boat  down 
the  rapids  of  the  Slave.  Johnny  Belcore,  as 
the  freight  contractor  was  named,  had  finally 
secured  a  Cree  pilot  who  knew  the  ancient 
channel,  used  time  out  of  mind  by  the  Hudson's 
Bay  boats  which  risked  this  dangerous  passage. 
He  agreed  to  take  the  Midnight  Sun  across  the 
portage  for  fifty  dollars,  and  to  charge  seventy- 
five  cents  for  each  hundred  poimds  of  freight. 
During  the  short  season  of  the  brigade's 
passage  north,  at  which  time  most  of  the 
amateurs  and  independents  were  crowding 
northward,  Belcore  made  a  very  considerable 
amoimt  of  money.  Our  party,  however, 
thought  his  charges  entirely  reasonable,  and, 
indeed,  would  not,  for  any  money,  have  fore- 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

gone  the  pleasure  of  ninning  these  redoubtable 
rapids.  They  learned  now  that  three  other 
scows  were  going  through  also.  Belcore  had 
his  team  on  one  of  these,  and  had  brought 
along  twenty-seven  men  to  man  the  boats, 
to  handle  the  team,  etc. 

In  the  early  evening  this  little  flotilla  pushed 
off,  with  few  regrets  at  leaving  Smith's  Land- 
ing behind.  On  the  left  lay  the  dangerous 
and  treacherous  falls  of  the  Priest  Rapids,  so 
called  by  reason  of  the  loss  there  of  a  Catholic 
priest  and  a  companion  years  ago.  The  boats, 
however,  were  rowed  in  slack  water  across 
above  these  big  falls,  then  took  two  fast 
chutes  upon  the  farther  side.  After  this 
smart  water  the  commodore  of  the  little  fleet 
pulled  in  to  portage  the  Cassette  Falls,  that 
tremendous  cascade  of  the  Slave  River  which 
so  terrifies  the  ordinary  observer  when  first  he 
sees  its  enormous  display  of  power.  There  are 
perhaps  few  more  terrifying  spectacles  of  wild 
water,  even  including  the  Whirlpool  Rapids 
at  Niagara. 

That  night  our  party  lay  in  bivouac,  and 
were  up  early  in  the  work  of  the  portage.  All 
the  goods  had  to  be  unloaded  and  all  the 
scows  were  hauled  up  the  steep  bank  by 
means  of  a  block  and  tackle.  Once  up  the 
bank,  the  team,  which  had  been  brought  along 

lOO 


THE  WILD   PORTAGE,  W/,^;^,,^. 

in  one  of  the  scows  and  forced  to  clunb'up  the' 
bank,  were  hitched  to  a  long  rope,  and  with 
the  aid  also  of  men  tugging  at  the  ropes  they 
rapidly  hauled  the  boat  over  the  high  and 
rocky  ground  which  made  the  portage — a 
distance  of  some  four  hundred  yards  in  all. 

It  was  about  four  o'clock  that  afternoon 
when  the  boats  had  finished  this  first  portage 
and  had  been  again  loaded  below  the  sharp 
drop  at  the  farther  end. 

The  boys  continually  hung  about  the  men 
in  this  curious  and  interesting  work,  and  plied 
Belcore  with  many  questions.  He  explained 
to  them  that  the  Cassette  Falls  are  on  one  of 
four  or  five  different  channels  into  which  the 
Slave  River  breaks  hereabouts.  Many  of 
these  chutes  could  not  be  run  at  all,  nor  could 
a  boat  be  lined  down  through  them  by  any 
possibiHty.  In  spite  of  all  this,  as  he  ex- 
plained, one  or  two  boats  of  ignorant  prospec- 
tors actually  had  foimd  their  way  down  the 
rapids  of  the  Slave,  preserved  by  Providence, 
as  Belcore  piously  affirmed. 

After  the  Cassette  Portage  there  came  a 
curve  in  the  rapid  run  of  water  where  a  canoe 
hardly  could  have  lived,  as  the  boys  thought, 
then  five  miles  of  very  slow  water  where  all  the 
men  had  to  row,  the  Slave  River  being  nothing 
if  not  freakish  in  its  methods  hereabouts.    At 


lOI 


YOUNG' ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

times  far"  to  the  left,  through  the  many  tree- 
covered  islands,  the  boys  could  see  the  fast 
channel  of  the  Slave  River  proper,  a  tre- 
mendous flood  pouring  steadily  northward  to 
the  Arctic  Sea. 

Belcore  said  the  drop  of  the  Slave  was  two 
hundred  feet  in  the  entire  length  of  the  port- 
age, but  the  government  estimate  is  a  hundred 
and  sixty-five  feet. 

"Well,"  said  John,  doing  a  little  figuring  on 
the  margin  of  his  map,  "we're  going  downhill 
pretty  fast,  it  seems  to  me,  as  we  go  north. 
The  Grand  Rapids  drop  only  fifty-five  feet. 
From  Athabasca  Landing  to  McMurray  there 
is  a  drop  of  eight  hundred  and  sixty  feet  in  the 
two  hundred  and  fifty- two  miles.  That's 
going  some.  And  here  we  drop  a  hundred  and 
sixty-five  feet  in  about  sixteen  miles.  It's  no 
wonder  the  water  gets  rough  sometimes." 

Belcore  pointed  out  to  them,  far  to  the  left, 
late  that  evening,  the  Middle  Rapids,  whose 
heavy  roar  they  could  hear  coming  to  them 
across  the  distance.  They  could  not  really 
see  these  rapids,  as  they  bore  off  to  the  right 
to  make  the  second  portage.  The  pilot  found 
his  way  without  any  chart  through  a  maze 
of  slack  water  and  blind  channels  hidden 
among  the  islands.  Belcore  told  them  that 
no  one  knew  all  of  the  Slave  River  at  this 


THE  WILD   PORTAGE 

point,  but  that  the  Indians  remembered  the 
way  they  had  been  following,  which  their 
fathers  and  their  fathers'  fathers  had  handed 
down  to  them  in  the  traditions  of  the 
tribes. 

At  this  second  portage,  or  traverse,  the 
goods  were  carried  across  by  the  wagon  and 
team,  the  boats  meantime  making  two  port- 
ages in  a  quarter  of  a  mile.  At  the  last  nm 
of  the  boats  the  men  stopped  calmly  no  more 
than  fifty  yards  above  a  chute  which  would 
have  wrecked  any  craft  undertaking  to  make 
the  run  through. 

For  yet  another  day  the  block-and-tackle 
work  on  the  scows,  the  horse-and-wagon  labor 
with  the  goods,  continued.  The  boats  were 
sometimes  hauled  over  wide  ridges  of  rough 
rocks,  till  the  wonder  was  that  they  held 
together  at  all.  There  was  one  ancient  craft, 
a  York  boat  of  earlier  times,  which  the  Com- 
pany was  taking  through,  and  this,  being 
stiffly  built  with  a  keel,  was  badly  strained 
and  rendered  very  leaky  by  the  time  it  got 
through  the  rude  traverse  of  the  rocky  port- 
age. The  men  took  tallow  and  oakum  and 
roughly  calked  the  seams  of  this  boat,  so  that 
it  was  possible  to  get  it  across  the  river  to 
Fort  Smith  eventually.  A  wagon-tire  came 
off,  which  left  the  wagon  helpless.    The  half- 

8  103 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

breeds  did  not  complain,  but  carried  its  load 
on  their  own  backs. 

"Well,"  said  Rob  to  John,  as  they  stood 
apart  at  one  time,  watching  this  wild  labor, 
"  Uncle  Dick  was  right.  We  are  in  the  wilder- 
ness now.  This  is  a  land  of  chance — every 
fellow  has  to  take  his  risks  without  gnmibling, 
and  his  work,  too.  I  like  to  see  these  men 
work;  they  are  so  strong." 

"They  tell  me  that  they  are  not  going  to 
drag  all  the  scows  across,  * '  said  John.  ' '  They're 
going  to  try  to  run  that  bad  chute  below  our 
landing  with  a  couple  of  scows.  The  men 
say  it  takes  too  long  to  wagon  them  across, 
and  they  would  much  rather  take  the  chance." 

"Fine!"  said  Rob.  "We'll  go  make  some 
pictures  of  them  as  they  go  through." 

"Hurry  on,  then,"  rejoined  John,  "and  get 
Jesse.  We  ought  to  get  some  fine  pictures 
there.  I've  been  down  and  seen  that  place, 
and  the  water  drops  higher  than  the  roof  of  a 
house  and  goes  through  a  narrow  place  where 
you  could  touch  both  sides  with  the  oars." 

It  was  indeed  as  they  had  said — the  half- 
breeds,  careless  ever  of  danger,  and  willing 
only  to  work  when  work  was  necessary, 
actually  did  run  two  scows  down  the  narrow 
chute  of  the  Middle  Rapids.  The  boys, 
cameras  in  hand,  did  their  best  to  make  pict- 

X04 


THE  WILD   PORTAGE 

tires  of  the  event,  and  stood  hardly  breathing 
as  they  saw  the  boats  go  down  the  toboggan- 
like incline  between  two  great  boulders  which 
the  poles  of  the  boatmen  touched  on  either 
side. 

As  the  scow  struck  the  level  water  at  the 
foot  of  this  chute  or  cascade,  her  bow  was 
submerged  for  almost  a  third  of  the  length, 
and  the  men  in  front  were  wet  waist-high. 
She  still  floated,  however,  as  she  swung  into 
the  strong  current  below,  and  the  men  with 
shouts  of  excitement  rowed  and  poled  her 
ashore.  To  them  it  seemed  much  better  to 
take  a  half -hour  of  danger  than  a  half -day  of 
work.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  both  boats  came 
through  not  much  the  worse  for  wear,  and 
perhaps  not  as  badly  damaged  as  they  would 
have  been  if  dragged  on  the  rollers  across 
the  rocky  hillside. 

"Well,  boys,"  said  Uncle  Dick  to  them,  as 
at  length  he  foimd  them  returning  from  this 
exciting  incident,  "it's  time  to  eat  again.  It 
ought  to  please  you,  John.  These  men  have 
to  work  so  hard  that  they  are  fed  four  times  a 
day.  This  is  meal  Number  Four  we're  going 
to  have  now." 

John  laughingly  agreed  to  this,  and  soon 
their  party  were  seated  cross-legged,  with 
their  tin  plates,  aroimd  the  stove  which  the 

105 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

contractor's  cook  had  set  up  on  the  shore. 
The  delay  was  not  very  long,  for  now,  after 
finishing  the  second  portage  of  the  boats,  the 
men  fell  to  and  slid  the  last  of  the  scows  down 
a  twenty-five-foot  bank  and  once  more  into 
the  current  of  the  stream. 

The  next  great  labor  of  this  short  but 
strenuous  sixteen  miles  was,  so  they  were 
informed,  to  come  at  the  Moiintain  Portage, 
a  spot  historic  in  all  the  annals  of  the  north- 
bound Hudson's  Bay  traffic. 

The  boats,  now  assembled  safely  and  once 
more  reloaded,  followed  their  leader  through 
a  ntmiber  of  blind  channels  which  caused  the 
boys  to  marvel,  across  the  Slave  River  to  the 
left,  rowed  up  in  slack  water  for  a  time,  and 
at  last  dropped  down  below  the  Pelican 
Rapids.  Now,  iinder  the  excited  cries  of  the 
pilot,  the  men  rowed  hard.  The  boats  crossed 
the  full  flood  of  the  Slave  River  for  a  mile  and 
a  half,  then  slipped  down  on  fast  water,  using  the 
eddies  beautifully,  and  at  last  dropped  into 
the  notch  in  a  high  barrier  which  seemed  to 
rise  up  directly  ahead  of  them.  Off  to  the 
right,  curving  about  the  great  promontory, 
foamed  the  impassable  waters  known  as  the 
Mountain  Rapids. 

All  the  north-boimd  freight  which  was  not 

traversed  by  wagon  across  Smith's  Landing 

1 06 


THE  WILD   PORTAGE 

must  be  carried  on  manback  over  the  Moirn- 
tain  Portage.  The  hill  which  rose  up  from 
the  riverside  was  crossed  by  a  sandy  road  or 
track,  the  eminence  being  about  a  hundred 
and  fifty  feet  on  the  upper  side  and  perhaps 
two  hundred  feet  on  the  lower. 

Of  coiu-se  here  every  boat  had  to  be  un- 
loaded once  more.  A  little  settlement  of  tents 
and  tarpaulins  and  mosquito  bars  rapidly 
arose.  It  was  a  rainy  camp  that  night,  and 
most  of  the  men  slept  drenched  in  their 
blankets,  but  in  the  morning  they  arose  with- 
out complaint  to  begin  their  arduous  labor  of 
packing  tons  of  supplies  across  this  high  and 
sandy  hill. 

The  party  here  was  joined  by  a  group  of 
four  prospectors  who  had  brought  their  scows 
in  some  way  down  this  far  by  the  aid  of  a 
pilot  not  accredited  by  the  traders.  All  these 
boats,  therefore,  had  to  take  turns  at  the 
Landing  in  the  discharge  of  their  cargoes. 
As  to  the  mission  scows  and  Father  Le  Fevre, 
they  were  left  far  behind,  nor  were  they  heard 
from  for  some  time. 

"The  wonder  is  to  me  that  there  isn't  more 
trouble  and  quarreling  on  this  far-off  trail," 
said  Rob  to  Uncle  Dick  as  they  stood  watching 
the  men  toiling  up  the  sandy  slope  tmder  their 
heavy  burdens,  each  man  carrying  at  least 

107 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

a  hundred  pounds,  some  of  them  twice  that. 
"I  should  think  every  one  would  lose  his 
temper  once  in  a  while." 

Uncle  Dick  smiled  at  this  remark.  "They 
do  sometimes,"  said  he,  ''although  I  think 
there  is  no  country  in  the  world  so  good  for  a 
man's  temper  as  this  northern  wilderness. 
A  fellow  just  naturally  learns  that  he  has  got 
to  keep  cool.  But  the  parties  like  the  Klondike 
tenderfeet  were  always  quarreling  among 
themselves.  I  heard  of  one  party  of  four  on 
the  Grand  Rapids  who  concluded  to  split  up. 
So  they  divided  their  supplies  into  two  halves 
exactly,  and  even  sawed  their  boat  in  two, 
so  neither  party  could  complain  that  the 
other  had  not  been  fair! 

"Well,  anyhow,"  he  continued,  as  the  boys 
laughed  at  this  story — a  true  one — "we  can- 
not accuse  any  of  our  men  here  of  being  ill- 
tempered.  They  are  using  this  haul  as  they 
have  for  maybe  a  hundred  years  or  so.  This 
is  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company's  idea  of  getting 
its  goods  north.  With  the  use  of  a  few 
hundred  dollars  and  the  labor  of  a  few  men 
they  could  improve  all  these  portages  through 
here  so  that  they  could  save  a  week  of  time 
and  hundreds  of  dollars  in  labor  charges  each 
season.  Will  they  do  it?  They  will  not. 
Why?     Because  they  are  the  Hudson's  Bay 

io8 


THE  WILD  PORTAGE 

Company — The  Honorable  Company  of  Ad- 
venturers of  England  trading  into  Hudson's 
Bay." 

"That's  right.  That's  the  trouble,"  said 
John.  "I  saw  that  name  on  a  little  bottle 
which  had  a  little  cocktail  in  it,  just  about 
one  drink,  the  man  said  who  had  it.  They 
seem  to  be  rather  proud  of  their  name.  It  went 
clean  around  the  bottle." 

"I  suppose  so,"  said  Uncle  Dick,  "and  they 
have  a  right  to  be  proud  in  many  ways,  for  it 
covers  a  wonderful  record.  You  can't  call  it 
a  record  of  enterprise,  however,  and  that's 
why  the  independents  are  coming  in  here, 
and  going  to  steal  the  land  out  from  under 
them  before  very  long.  I  could  take  two  men 
and  a  team,  and  in  two  days'  time  cut  the  top 
off  this  hill  here  at  the  Mountain  Portage. 
It  takes  our  twenty-four  men  and  a  team 
four  hours  to  get  one  scow  up  the  hill.  To  an 
American  engineer  that  doesn't  look  very 
much  like  good  business.  But  inasmuch  as  it 
isn't  all  our  funeral,  we'll  take  our  medicine 
and  won't  kick — remembering  what  I've  told 
you  about  the  lessons  we  ought  to  learn  from 
all  this. 

"But  now  remember  one  thing,"  he  went 
on.  "In  the  old  times,  before  there  was  any 
steamboat  on  the  Mackenzie  or  on  the  Slave 

109 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

River,  every  bit  of  the  fur  had  to  go  out  in 
boats  under  the  tracking-Hne.  They  tell  me 
the  old  tracking-path  ran  yonder  around  the 
promontory.  A  jolly  stiff  pull,  1 11  warrant  you, 
they  had  getting  up  through  here.  But  think 
of  it — they  did  it  not  only  one  year,  but  every 
year  for  more  than  a  hundred  years!" 

Rob  continued  his  diary  more  or  less  im- 
patiently during  the  time  they  lay  at  the 
Mountain  Portage,  but  noted  that  on  Monday, 
June  23d,  at  seven-thirty  in  the  evening,  the 
work  was  all  concluded.    His  notes  ran: 

"We  are  off.  Fort  Smith  is  next.  Fast 
water.  Pilot  Boniface  in  bow.  River 
very  wide  below  the  Moimtain  Rapids, 
and  wanders  very  much — every  which 
way.  Shallow  so  the  boats  have  trouble. 
They  say  no  one  could  run  the  big  water 
below  Pelican  Island  off  to  the  right. 
Crossed  the  river  in  a  wide  circle.  Could 
hear  roar  of  heavy  rapids  on  both  sides. 
Boniface  says  if  the  water  was  high  we 
wovild  run  the  big  rapids  on  the  left 
straight  through,  but  we  cannot  do  it 
now.  Our  channel  is  crooked  like  a 
double  letter  S,  and  I  don't  see  how  he 
follows  it.    It  takes  fancy  steering. 

"We  are  following  what  they  call  the 
no 


THE  WILD   PORTAGE 

old  Hudson's  Bay  channel.  This  carries 
us  to  the  right-hand  side  of  the  river, 
and  it  looks  a  mile  or  two  across.  Storm 
came  up  and  we  got  wet.  Over  to  the 
left  we  could  see  lights.  They  said  it  was 
the  steamboat  Mackenzie  River  lying  at 
her  moorings  at  Fort  Smith.  Jolly  glad 
to  get  done  with  this  work. 

"Dark  and  wet  and  late.  Went  on 
board  steamboat.  Quite  a  post  here. 
A  good  many  strangers  besides  the  Com- 
pany people.  W^ell,  here  we  are  at  the 
head  of  the  Mackenzie  River,  or  the  Big 
Slave,  as  they  call  it  here.  I'm  pretty 
glad." 


VIII 

ON   THE   MACKENZIE 

THE  three  young  companions  stood  in  the 
bright  sunHght  on  the  high  bank  of 
Fort  Smith  at  the  foot  of  which  lay  the  steamer 
which  was  to  carry  them  yet  farther  on  their 
northwest  journey.  About  them  lay  the 
scattered  settlements  at  the  foot  of  the 
Grand  Traverse  between  the  Slave  and  the 
Mackenzie.  Off  to  the  right,  along  the  low 
bed  of  the  river,  lay  the  encampment  of  the 
natives,  waiting  for  the  "trade"  of  the 
season.  Upon  the  other  hand  were  the  log 
houses  of  the  Company  employees,  structures 
not  quite  so  well  built,  perhaps,  as  those  at 
Chippewyan,  but  adapted  to  the  severity  of 
this  northern  climate. 

At  the  foot  of  the  high  embankment,  busy 
among  the  luiloaded  piles  of  cargo  which  had 
been  traversed  from  the  disembarkment  point 
of  Smith's  Landing,  trotted  in  steady  stream 
the   sinewy  laborers,   the   same   half-breeds 

112 


ON  THE  MACKENZIE 

who  everywhere  make  the  reliance  of  the  fur 
trade  in  the  upper  latitudes.  They  were 
carrying  now  on  board  the  Mackenzie  River, 
as  the  steamboat  was  named,  the  usual  heavy 
loads  of  flour,  bacon,  side-meat,  sugar,  trade 
goods,  all  the  staples  of  the  trade,  not  too  ex- 
pensive in  their  total. 

There  were  to  be  seen  also  the  himian  flot- 
sam and  jetsam  of  this  northern  country — 
miners,  prospectors,  drifters,  government  em- 
ployees, and  adventurers — all  caught  here  as 
though  in  the  cleats  of  a  flimie,  at  this  focusing- 
point  at  the  foot  of  the  wild  northern  waters. 

"John,"  said  Jesse,  at  last,  as  he  drew  a  ftill 
breath  of  warm  yet  invigorating  air,  "how  is 
your  map  coming  along?" 

"Pretty  well,"  replied  John.  "I've  got 
everything  charted  this  far.  Look  here  how 
I've  put  down  our  journey  through  the 
rapids  of  the  Slave  River;  we  zigzagged  all 
about.  I  put  down  the  rocks  and  the  biggest 
headlands,  so  I  think  I've  got  it  pretty  close  to 
correct.  I  wonder  how  we  ever  got  through 
there,  and  how  the  old  Company  men  first 
went  through." 

"Two  boats  came  through  directly  over  the 
big  rapids  which  we  didn't  dare  tackle,"  said 
Rob.  "They  were  tenderfeet,  and  they  don't 
know  to  this  day  how  lucky  they  were." 

"3 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

"Well,  we  were  lucky  enough,  too,"  said 
John,  "for  in  spite  of  our  bad  omens  at 
Chippewyan,  everything  has  come  through 
fine.  Here  we  are,  all  ready  for  our  last  great 
swing  to  the  North.  Look  here  on  the  map, 
fellows — I  always  thought  that  the  Mackenzie 
River  ran  straight  north  up  to  the  Arctic 
Ocean,  but  look  here — if  you  start  from  where 
we  are  right  now,  and  follow  the  Great  Slave 
River  on  out  through  Great  Slave  Lake, 
you'll  find  it  runs  almost  as  much  west  as  it 
does  north.  It  lurches  clear  over  toward 
Alaska,  although  it's  all  on  British  ground.'* 

Jesse  expressed  his  surprise  at  seeing  so 
many  "common-looking  people,"  as  he  called 
it,  up  here  in  the  fur  country,  where  he  had 
expected  to  find  only  gaudily  dressed  traders 
and  trappers;  but  Rob,  who  had  observed 
more  closely,  explained  some  of  this  to  him. 

"A  good  many  of  these  people,"  he  said, 
"are  simply  drifters  who  intend  to  live  any 
way  they  can.  They  make  a  sort  of  fringe 
on  the  last  thrust  of  west-bound  settler  folk; 
there  is  always  such  a  wave  goes  out  ahead 
of  the  permanent  settlers. 

"Not  that  they  can  settle  this  country 
permanently.  They  tell  me  that  they  raise 
potatoes  even  north  of  here,  and,  as  you  know, 
they  raise  fine  wheat  at   Chippewyan;  but 

114 


ON  THE  MACKENZIE 

this  will  never  be  an  agricultural  country. 
No,  it's  the  country  of  the  fur  trade — always 
has  been,  and  I  hope  and  believe  always  will 
be." 

"Well,"  said  John,  drawing  himself  up  to 
his  full  height,  "I'm  for  a  little  more  excite- 
ment. It's  getting  slow  here,  watching  the 
people  load  the  boats." 

As  to  what  did  happen  in  the  way  of  interest 
to  our  travelers,  Rob's  diary  will  serve  as 
well  as  an3rthing  to  explain  their  experiences 
for  the  next  few  days : 

"  Tuesday,  June  24th.  —  Not  quite  a 
month  out  from  Athabasca  Landing. 
Have  come  553  miles.  Steamboat  now 
for  the  rest  of  the  way  north.  She  is  a 
side-wheeler,  pretty  big,  with  several 
berths  and  a  dining-room.  I  think  she 
will  be  pretty  well  crowded. 

*  *  More  dogs  here.  To-day  three  or  four 
big  huskies  ate  up  a  little  Lapland  dog 
puppy  which  one  of  the  men  had  brought 
along  to  take  home  with  him.  They  broke 
through  the  bars  of  the  crate  and  hauled 
out  the  puppy  and  ate  him  alive!  Don't 
like  the  looks  of  them  after  dark. 

"There  is  a  mission  school  here.  The 
Church  people  are  against  fur-hunting. 
IIS 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

I  don't  see  what  else  the  natives  can  do. 
If  you  wanted  to  buy  any  fur  here  you 
would  have  to  go  to  the  independents 
and  pay  a  big  price.  This  place  had 
very  little  to  eat  left  in  it  when  we  got 
here.  Not  much  fish  just  now,  as  the 
river  is  too  high.  The  cargo  of  the  mis- 
sion scows  is  not  over  the  portage  yet. 
Some  people  of  the  Anglican  Church  go 
north  with  us,  too,  also  four  Northwest 
Mounted  Police,  who  go  to  Fort  Mc- 
Pherson  and  Herschel  Island.  They 
relieve  others  who  will  go  out.  Lonesome 
life,  I  should  think. 

^^  Wednesday,  June  25th. — Loaded  and 
got  off  3  P.M.  They  call  this  the  Big  Slave, 
then  Mackenzie  River,  but  I  can't  see 
why  it  isn't  just  the  same  river  that 
starts  back  in  the  Rocky  Mountains. 
Passed  the  little  steamboat  St.  Marie. 
The  bishop  of  this  country  is  on  it,  also 
many  Indians.  Our  boat  asked  him  if 
the  ice  was  out  of  Great  Slave  Lake,  and 
he  says  yes.    Tied  up  very  late  at  night. 

"  Thursday,  June  26th. — Have  seen  no 
game.  The  banks  are  low  and  very 
monotonous.  Not  very  pretty.  Most 
people  are  playing  cards  on  the  boat. 
No  one  to  talk  to  but  ourselves.  Have 
116 


ON  THE  MACKENZIE 

to  slow  up  because  the  head-wind  is 
filHng  the  scows  with  water. 

"There  is  very  httle  darkness  now, 
even  at  midnight,  although  there  is  a  sort 
of  sunset  even  yet. 

''Friday,  June  27th. — Tied  up  twelve 
miles  from  Resolution,  in  delta  of  the 
Slave  River.  Low  marshes  all  around. 
Some  men  on  the  boat,  traders  and 
others,  took  canoe  and  paddled  over  to 
the  post. 

''Saturday,  June  28th.  —  This  is  my 
birthday.  If  I  were  home  might  have  a 
cake  or  something.  Other  boys  and 
Uncle  Dick  very  nice  to  me.  Went  out 
into  the  lake,  but  did  not  dare  to  chance 
the  waves,  so  came  back  in  the  channel. 
Our  captain  is  uneasy  because  he  is 
afraid  the  independent  traders  will  get 
into  Resolution  before  we  do.  Some 
competition  even  here.  Wind  dropped 
at  9  P.M.  We  could  have  gone  on,  but  the 
Hudson's  Bay  always  waits  if  it  gets  a 
chance. 

"Sunday,  June  2gth. — The  St.  Marie 
and  the  Caribou,  an  independent  trading- 
boat,  both  sighted.  Both  probably  will 
beat  us  in  to  Resolution. 

"Monday,  June  30th. — Loafed  another 
117 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

day.  Other  boats  passed  out  at  night. 
We  started  out  late.  Pulled  the  nose  out 
of  otir  sturgeon-nose  scow  and  she  began 
to  settle.  All  that  the  men  and  three 
pumps  could  do  to  keep  her  from  sinking. 
Got  her  in  shallow  water  at  last  and  tried 
to  patch  her  up.  This  was  the  Fort 
Nelson  cargo,  and  it  is  ruined.  Boat 
covered  with  smeared  calico  and  blankets 
and  everything  else,  hung  up  to  dry. 
Pretty  mess  they  will  have  at  Fort  Nelson 
— but  this  is  all  they'll  have  for  another 
year!    Nobody  seems  to  care. 

"  Tuesday,  July  ist. — ^Anchored  off  Fort 
Resolution,  and  went  ashore.  Indian 
tepees  all  over  the  beach.  Hundreds  of 
dogs.  Two  trading-posts  here,  a  mission 
school,  and  a  church.  Mixed  scenes, 
mostly  savage.  There  is  a  York  boat 
down  from  Fort  Rae.  Says  they  are 
starving  there.  Plenty  of  fish  here. 
Hudson's  Bay  boat  lost  in  this  race.  In- 
dependent goods  are  now  eighty  miles 
farther  down  the  river  than  we  are.  Left 
a  Moimted  Policeman  and  a  scientist 
here.  No  Moimted  Policeman  ever  had 
a  horse  up  here. 

"They  say  that  the  damaged  cargo  in 
the  Fort  Nelson  boat  will  lose  half  its 

ii8 


ON  THE  MACKENZIE 

value.  Fort  Nelson  is  up  the  Liard  River, 
and  it  takes  twenty-five  days  of  tracking 
from  the  mouth  of  the  Liard  in  the 
Mackenzie. 

"As  we  go  down  the  edge  of  the 
Great  Slave  Lake — the  big  river  runs 
through  it — everything  is  quiet  and  the 
sky  is  bright.  Once  in  a  while  we  see  a 
belt  of  clear  water  now.  Have  been  on 
muddy  water  ever  since  we  started  out 
at  Athabasca  Landing.  Fort  Resolution 
as  we  leave  it  imder  the  morning  sun 
makes  a  pretty  picture. 

"All  sorts  of  people  on  the  boat.  One 
Oxford  man,  an  interpreter  and  Indian 
agent,  and  his  five  breed  children.  An- 
other ex-Indian  agent  who  is  going  north 
with  the  last  of  the  treaty  payments. 
These  old-timers  in  the  north  country 
tell  us  all  kinds  of  stories.  Wish  I  had 
time  to  put  them  down.  People  up  here 
get  about  one  mail  a  year.  One  winter 
mail  comes  across  the  mountains  from 
Dawson.  They  say  a  mail  goes  into 
Fort  McPherson  from  Dawson  every 
winter,  too.  Three  years  ago  four  mem- 
bers of  the  Moimted  Police  were  lost 
trying  to  make  it  across  from  McPherson 
to  Dawson.    Their  names  were  Inspector 

9  119 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

Fitzgerald,  Constables  Taylor  and  Kenny, 
and  Carter,  a  special  constable.  They 
all  starved.  They  are  biiried  at  Fort 
Mcpherson.  Their  guide  was  Carter, 
and  he  got  lost.  The  inspector  of  the 
Mounted  Police  who  is  to  go  to  Fort 
Herschel  was  in  the  Boer  War,  in  Africa, 
far  south  of  the  Equator. 

"Uncle  Dick  tells  me  that  the  names 
of  the  tribes  through  which  we  will  pass 
on  our  big  journey  are,  first,  the  Crees, 
who  go  as  far  north  as  McMurray  and 
Chippewyan;  then  the  Great  Chippe- 
wyan  people,  scattered  here  over  a  big 
country;  then  the  Dog  Ribs,  the  Yellow 
Knives,  the  Slavics,  the  Mountain  Slavics, 
the  Rabbit  or  Hare  people,  the  Loucheux, 
and  the  Eskimos.  The  Loucheux  and 
the  Eskimos  lap  over  along  the  southern 
edge  of  the  Arctic.  We  are  among  the  Dog 
Ribs  here.  Their  canoes  are  very  small, 
made  out  of  spruce  and  birch  bark,  and 
so  narrow  you  would  not  think  they  could 
float  anything  at  all.  That's  as  big  as 
they  can  get  the  bark  up  here. 

"  Now  we  begin  to  see  sledges  and  snow- 
shoes  and  meat-racks.  They  have  to  put 
ever3rthing  up  high  so  the  dogs  can't  get 
them.    Dried  fish  everywhere,  or  what  is 

Z20 


ON  THE  MACKENZIE 

left  of  the  last  winter's  supply.  Looks 
like  we  were  in  the  North  at  last.  Father 
Le  Fevre  told  me  that  at  Chippewyan 
they  put  up  over  a  hundred  thousand 
'pieces  of  fish' — that  means  a  whole  fish 
each — every  year  for  the  people  and  the 
dogs. 

"English  mission  at  Hay  River  has 
seventy  scholars.  They  are  put  in  red 
coats.  They  live  on  fish  and  potatoes. 
We  leave  at  Hay  River  the  wife  of  the 
Anglican  minister.  There  are  two  young 
ladies  stationed  there  also.  The  minis- 
ter's wife  had  been  gone  for  two  years — 
outside,  as  we  call  it  in  Alaska.  Found  a 
garden  here,  quite  a  potato-field,  also 
fresh  pie-plant,  lettuce,  and  radishes, 
all  big  enough  to  eat  on  July  ist.  Many 
fat  dogs.  Don't  know  whether  the  natives 
eat  these  or  not.  This  country  imder 
the  Arctic  Ocean  is  different  from  what 
we  thought  it  was — not  so  cold,  and  more 
civilized  in  some  ways. 

"Oiu-  ex-Indian  agent  leaves  us  here  to 
pay  treaty  money.  A  young  teacher 
leaves  us  also  here  for  the  Anglican 
mission.  We  find  here,  much  to  our 
wonder,  on  one  of  the  little  mission  steam- 
boats which  beat  us  out  from  Fort  Smith 

121 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

word  from  the  two  good  Sisters  with 
whom  we  traveled  on  the  scows  up  to 
Fort  McMurray.  One  was  left  at  Chip- 
pewyan  and  one  at  Resolution.  Here 
also  is  the  judicial  party  which  we  left 
back  at  Fort  McMurray.  They  have 
come  down  on  the  St.  Marie.  We  say 
good-by  here  to  Father  Le  Fevre.  Several 
church  dignitaries  about  here.  The  An- 
glican Church  seems  more  prominent 
here  than  at  most  of  the  posts. 

"  I  went  out  with  an  Indian  boy  here  to 
run  his  nets,  and  we  took  out  an  awful 
lot  of  fish — one  lake  trout  of  thirty-three 
and  a  half  pounds,  and  one  of  twenty-five 
pounds,  five  fine  whitefish,  and  fotir  fish 
that  I  never  saw.  The  boy  called  them 
'  Connies.'  Inconnu  is  the  real  name  for 
this  fish.  The  first  French  voyageurs  who 
saw  this  fish  did  not  know  what  it  was, 
so  they  called  it  'imknown.*  It  looks 
something  like  a  salmon  and  something 
like  a  sucker.  Its  mouth  is  rather  square. 
Its  flesh  is  something  like  that  of  a  white- 
fish,  and  it  is  used  a  great  deal  as  food. 
We  don't  like  any  fish  as  well  as  the 
whitefish  right  along.  They  tell  me  a 
lake  trout  has  been  caught  here  weighing 
forty-foiu-  and  a  half  poimds.    The  boat 

122 


ON  THE   MACKENZIE 

captain  says  he  has  seen  one  weighing 
sixty- three  pounds. 

"Our  steamer  left  at  I  A.M.,  but  when 
well  under  way  remembered  that  it  had 
forgotten  the  mail-bags!  So  we  turned 
around  and  went  back.  If  we  had  not 
done  so  the  people  north  of  here  would 
not  have  had  any  mail  this  year.  The 
■  Hudson's  Bay  Company  has  fimny  ways. 

''Wednesday,  July  2d,  —  Off  for  Fort 
Providence.  Running  better,  for  scows 
are  lighter  loaded  now.  In  the  morning 
came  into  Beaver  Lake,  which  they  say 
is  the  head  of  the  true  Mackenzie,  not 
at  Fort  Smith.  I  suppose  the  lower 
point  is  more  correct;  at  least  the  other 
map-makers  say  so,  in  spite  of  what 
John  believes.    But  it's  aU  one  river. 

"Many  ducks,  and  this  seems  a  breed- 
ing-ground. A  great  many  islands. 
Shores  are  broken.  The  river  or  lake  is 
about  three-quarters  of  a  mile  to  three 
miles  wide.  At  2.40  in  the  afternoon  we 
got  into  what  they  call  the  Mackenzie 
River  proper.  It  is  only  about  a  half 
to  three-quarters  of  a  mile  wide.  It  is 
bold  and  clearer  than  the  other  waters 
we  have  been  traveling  on. 

"  Late  in  the  evening  reached  the  shores 
123 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

of  Fort  Providence,  a  very  sightly  spot. 
The  mission  school  formed  their  red-clad 
girls  in  a  platoon  on  the  bank,  waiting 
for  us.  Every  girl  had  her  hands  folded 
in  front  of  her.  The  boys  were  in  ranks, 
too.  They  wore  a  gray  uniform.  The 
balcony  of  the  building  back  of  them 
was  filled  with  the  older  girls  and  with 
the  Sisters  in  a  dark  sort  of  uniform.  All 
the  flags  were  flying.  The  sun  was  very 
bright.  This  made  a  striking  picture. 
Crowds  of  Indians  came  and  sat  on  the 
bank,  waiting  for  us  to  land.  A  good 
many  tepees  on  the  flat  ground.  There 
is  a  mission  garden  in  a  stockade,  the 
best  garden  we  have  yet  seen.  Here  there 
are  many  onions,  potatoes,  rhubarb,  and 
a  hedge  of  rose-bushes — a  very  beautiful 
sight  in  this  far  land,  and  one  I  did  not 
think  we  would  find. 

"A  good  many  men  on  the  boat  are 
trading  with  the  Indians  for  bead-work. 
A  pair  of  moccasins  is  worth  from  a 
dollar  to  a  dollar  and  a  half.  One  man 
bought  the  leggings  of  a  squaw  and  off 
the  squaw — ^for  she  was  wearing  them 
when  he  bought  them.  They  say  the 
trade  situation  here  is  bad — too  much 
competition.  Independents  sometimes 
124 


ON  THE  MACKENZIE 

pay  three  hundred  dollars  for  a  silver- 
gray  fox,  which  is  only  worth  a  hundred 
and  twenty-five.  The  people  here  are 
Slavies,  and  are  not  much  good.  The 
post  was  out  of  goods  when  we  got  in,  and 
had  mighty  little  fur  to  send  out,  too. 
Indian  village  starving,  living  on  rabbits 
and  dried  fish.  No  fish  running  now. 
These  people  seem  a  lazy  lot. 

"At  Fort  Resolution  there  were  Chip- 
pewyans.  Dog  Ribs,  Slavies,  and  Yellow 
Knives,  all  mixed.  At  Hay  River  there 
were  Dog  Ribs  and  Slavies.  At  Provi- 
dence they  are  all  Slavies,  and  the  Indian 
commissioner  says  they  are  the  worst 
lot  on  the  whole  river.  Independent 
traders  very  angry  here  because  their 
clerks  have  not  made  any  money. 

''Thursday,  July  jd. — On  the  Mac- 
kenzie. Reached  the  '  head  of  the  line' — 
that  is,  the  coimtry  where  they  have  to 
track  boats  on  the  line.  At  3  p.m.  reached 
the  mouth  of  the  Liard,  which  seemed  as 
big  as  the  Peace  River.  It  comes  in  on  the 
left.  A  grand  scene  here.  On  ahead  is 
Fort  Simpson  on  a  very  high  bluff — the 
most  picturesque  spot  we  have  seen  yet 
on  this  trip.  They  say  they  once  had 
electric  lights  here,  but  not  now.  Some 
125 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

farms  and  gardens,  much  to  our  surprise. 
Frost  comes  about  September  ist.  They 
all  say  there  will  be  a  city  here  some  time. 
Maybe,  but  I  wouldn't  like  to  live  there. 

"Slavics  at  this  post.  Two  villages, 
very  wild  and  barbarous-looking.  A 
great  many  fine  canoes.  The  life  is  very 
wild  about  us  here.  One  canoe  comes  in 
loaded  down  with  rabbits  which  they 
have  shot  along  the  shores.  Much  gaudy 
clothing  and  savage  finery  now.  Every 
one  wears  moccasins.  One  woman  here 
does  fine  porcupine-quill  work.  She  is 
Mrs.  McLeod,  and  is  the  daughter  of 
Old-man  Firth,  who  is  the  factor  at  Fort 
McPherson,  so  they  say.  She  is  the 
wife  of  the  factor  at  Fort  Nelson,  and 
knows  how  to  trade.  Quill-work  costs  a 
lot. 

"At  this  pomt  we  lost  the  wife  of  an 
Indian  trader  who  had  come  this  far 
north  with  us,  also  two  Moimted  Police- 
men, the  ex-Indian  agent  and  his  family, 
a  preacher  and  his  son,  and  several  others. 
The  boat  company  is  getting  lighter  now. 

"There  was  a  scow-load  of  supplies 

for  treaties  to  be  used  up  the  Liard  River. 

Now  we  find  that    the  Hudson's  Bay 

Company  has  left  all  this  stuff  at  Fort 

ia6 


ON  THE   MACKENZIE 

Smith,  away  behind  us !  This  shows  what 
sort  of  transport  it  is.  The  Northwest 
Mounted  PoHce  grub,  due  last  April, 
is  not  here  yet.  No  wonder  this  is  a 
starving  country.  It  is  very  wild  and 
interesting  around  here.  John  and  Jesse 
and  I  are  having  a  splendid  time.  This 
is  the  best  trip  we  ever  had. 

"We  had  a  bishop  on  board  here. 
We  boys  talked  quite  a  while  with  the 
post  factor.  He  says  there  are  many 
records  wTitten  in  the  Company  books 
here  which  go  back  seventy-five  years 
and  more.  We  bought  a  few  things  here 
which  we  thought  we  could  take  along 
with  us. 

"  Friday,  July  4th. — It  looked  fimny  to 
see  the  British  flag,  and  not  the  Stars  and 
Stripes,  to-day.  We  three  boys  cele- 
brated, just  the  same — we  went  out  in 
the  woods  and  shot  off  our  rifles  several 
times.  Weather  is  beautiful,  soft,  and 
warm.  Made  many  photographs.  The 
river  here  is  about  a  mile  wide. 

"We  left  at  4  P.M.,  and  soon  stopped  to 
take  on  wood.  Ran  till  8  o'clock  before 
we  could  begin  to  see  the  outlines  of  the 
Nahanni  Mountains.  Suppose  they  are 
a  spur  of  the  great  Rockies  wandered 
127 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

this  far  away  from  home.  A  veil  of  smoke 
seems  to  hang  over  them.  We  boys 
could  not  sleep  very  well,  and  were  up 
till  I  o'clock  looking  at  the  scenery. 
Uncle  Dick  has  been  talking  with  the 
captain  of  our  boat  about  the  Nahanni 
River,  which  comes  down  here  through 
a  notch  in  the  mountains.  The  Indians 
go  up  to  the  North  Nahanni,  portage 
across  to  the  South  Nahanni,  run  down  to 
the  Liard  River,  and  come  down  it  to 
the  Mackenzie.  This  is  a  trip  no  white 
man  has  ever  taken.  It  must  be  a  wild 
coimtry  in  there.  John  is  honest  with 
his  map,  so  he  just  marks  this  place 
'Unknown.*  Prospectors  have  gone  up 
the  Liard  to  the  Nahanni.  The  geolo- 
gists say  there  is  no  chance  for  gold  in 
there. 

''Saturday,  July  5th. — Fort  Wrigley  at 
7.35  in  the  morning.  One  independent 
post  besides  the  H.  B.  post.  A  good  deal 
of  fur  in  these  two  posts,  and  some  very 
fine  fox  skins.  The  marten  seem  rather 
yellow,  the  lynx  good,  beaver  and  bear 
good.  We  saw  one  wolverine  skin  here, 
a  good  many  mink,  and  one  otter  skin. 
This  otter  skin  was  not  cased,  as  we 
fixed  them  in  Alaska,  but  was  split  and 
128 


ON  THE  MACKENZIE 

stretched  like  a  beaver  skin.  They  say 
the  Indians  do  that  way  with  their  otter 
here.  Did  not  stop  long  at  this  post,  as 
we  are  beginning  to  hurry  now. 

"It  is  a  strange  thing  to  us  that  we 
have  not  seen  any  game  on  all  this  trip. 
No  one  has  seen  a  moose  since  the  one 
that  was  killed  above  the  Grand  Rapids 
of  the  Athabasca.  I  suppose  the  game 
country  is  back  in  farther.  The  Indians 
get  plenty  of  moose  for  their  leather- work. 

"In  the  evening  we  came  to  Fort  Nor- 
man, which  marks  the  entry  of  the  Bear 
River.  I  should  call  that  the  gate  of  an- 
other land  of  mystery — up  in  there  some- 
where Sir  John  Franklin  perished.  They 
say  the  white  Eskimos  are  descendants 
of  some  of  his  men.  They  say  a  man  was 
taken  captive  by  the  Indians  up  in  there, 
and  lived  with  them  several  years,  and 
then  got  out.  He  lives  now  somewhere 
in  Saskatchewan. 

"At  9.45  we  saw  a  burning  bank  on 
the  Mackenzie  River.  It  is  said  to  have 
burned  forty-five  years.  It  was  in  some 
sort  of  tar  sand,  of  which  we  have  seen 
a  good  deal  on  our  journey.  Tied  up  at 
10  o'clock.  There  is  a  whole  village  of 
Mountain  Indians  here  at  the  foot  of  the 
129 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

bluff.  A  wild  sight.  The  tepees  are 
pitched  very  close  together.  Hundreds 
of  dogs.  Children  are  eating  and  running 
around  everjr^vhere.  The  boat  whistled, 
and  the  dogs  all  ran  off  up  the  hill  and  the 
children  screamed.  They  say  that  five 
years  ago  these  wild  Indians  left  this 
place  and  went  across  the  mountains  to 
the  Stuart  River  to  trade.  They  brought 
back  Yvikon  stoves  for  their  tents,  the 
same  as  they  have  up  in  Alaska.  They 
came  down  the  Gravel  River  here  in 
skin  boats.  Their  birch-bark  canoes  look 
like  Eskimo  kayaks.  They  have  a  short 
deck  fore  and  aft,  and  sharply  slanting 
stem  and  stem  posts.  The  bow  does  not 
curve  back. 

"Fort  Norman  is  on  a  high  bluff.  The 
H.  B.  Company  has  put  in  some  stairs. 
Not  very  many  buildings,  very  little 
goods,  and  little  fur.  We  did  some  trad- 
ing with  the  Indians  for  trinkets.  There 
is  an  Anglican  chiirch  here,  a  very  small 
building.  The  little  bell  rang,  and  oiu* 
bishop  started  over  to  hold  services. 
It  was  said  that  these  Indians  who  had 
come  back  from  the  Stuart  River  wanted 
to  go  to  church  again,  so  this  service  was 
held  for  them.  It  was  the  first  time  in 
130 


ON  THE  MACKENZIE 

five  years  in  this  church.  There  was  a 
wedding  there  to-night,  they  tell  me, 
and  several  children  were  christened, 
three  or  four  years  of  age.  One  child  was 
named  Woodrow  Wilson  Quasinay.  We 
did  it  for  a  joke,  but  the  parents  thought 
it  was  a  fine  name!  He  was  four  years 
old,  and  very  dirty,  and  cried  a  good  deal 
when  he  got  his  name. 

"We  are  getting  to  where  the  sim  does 
not  stay  down  very  long.  The  bishop 
read  his  services  to-night  by  the  natural 
light  of  the  window.  With  the  bishop's 
consent  we  made  a  flash-light  picture  of 
this  scene  in  the  church.  Then  there 
was  Holy  Communion.  The  services 
were  not  done  when  the  whistle  of  the 
boat  blew  and  everybody  had  to  nm  to 
get  on  board.  The  captain  scolded  the 
bishop  for  being  so  late !  This  is  a  fimny 
country,  I  think. 

"This  closes  a  week  which  has  been 
quite  full  of  events,  I  think.  Jesse  and 
John  very  happy.  The  pictures  around 
us  seem  more  savage.  We  are  getting 
into  the  Far  North  of  which  we  have 
read  so  much.    It  is  fine!" 


IX 

UNDER  THE  ARCTIC  CIRCLE 

OF  the  motley  assemblages  which  thronged 
the  capacity  of  the  steamer  Mackenzie 
River  our  three  young  companions  were  usu- 
ally the  first  to  arise  in  the  morning.  Morn- 
ing, however,  had  come  by  this  time  to  be  a 
relative  term,  for  the  steady  progress  into  the 
northern  latitudes  had  now  brought  them 
almost  under  the  Midnight  Sun,  so  that  there 
was  but  a  brief  period  of  darkness  at  any  hour 
of  the  night.  On  the  morning  of  July  6th 
they  stood  conversing  on  the  fore-deck,  look- 
ing down  the  vast  river  as  it  passed  between 
its  bold  and  broken  shores. 

"Well,"  said  Rob  to  the  others,  "here  we 
are,  not  quite  forty  days  out  from  our  start, 
and  we  have  come  more  than  sixteen  hundred 
miles  already !  We're  beginning  to  add  now  to 
our  daily  mileage,  traveling  this  way  day 
and  night." 

"Well,  even  at  this  rate,"  rejoined  John, 
132 


UNDER  THE  ARCTIC  CIRCLE 

*'I  am  not  sure  that  I  see  how  we  will  get 
out  of  this  northern  country  inside  of  our 
three  months'  schedule.  If  we  don't,  we'll 
have  to  pass  the  winter,  won't  we?" 

Jesse  looked  a  little  bit  gloomy  at  this  idea. 
To  tell  the  truth,  he,  the  youngest  of  the 
party,  was  at  times  just  a  little  homesick. 
The  country  through  which  they  passed 
seemed  so  stupendous,  so  awesome,  as  almost 
to  oppress  the  spirits  of  those  not  used  to  it. 

"Cheer  up!  Jess,"  said  Rob,  clapping  him 
on  the  shoulder.  "There  will  be  something 
happening  now  before  long.  We're  almost 
up  to  the  Arctic  Circle,  and  to-day,  if  I'm  not 
mistaken,  we  run  into  the  best  scenery  on  the 
Mackenzie  River,  what  they  call  the  Ram- 
parts. The  captain  was  telling  me  about  it 
yesterday." 

They  did  not,  however,  reach  this  portion 
of  their  voyage  until  very  late  in  the  evening, 
when  they  arrived  at  the  head  of  that  long 
and  gentle  bit  of  water  called  the  Sans  Sault 
Rapids.  The  river  here  was  about  a  mile 
wide,  but  offered  no  bad  chutes.  The  cap- 
tain told  them  that  it  only  took  eight  minutes 
to  run  through,  but  that  the  time  coming 
up  with  the  steamboat  usually  had  averaged 
one  and  three-quarter  hours. 

The  strange,  liuninous  twilight  of  the  sub- 
133 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

Arctic  day  continued  until  midnight.  It  was, 
indeed,  after  eleven  o'clock  when  the  steamer 
struck  that  narrow  shut-in  of  the  Mackenzie 
River  where  the  great  flood,  compressed  be- 
tween high  and  rocky  shores,  nms  steadily 
and  deep  for  a  very  considerable  distance. 
Above  the  actual  beginning  of  the  narrower 
channel  lay  a  great,  deep  pool,  many  him- 
dreds  of  yards  wide,  while  at  the  right  hand 
of  its  lower  ex-tremity  sprang  up  a  bald  white 
rock  face  of  limestone. 

So  sharp  was  the  bend  of  the  great  river 
here  that  at  the  turn  it  seemed  as  though  the 
river  itself  had  come  to  an  end  or  had  dropped 
out  of  sight.  The  walls  on  the  left  seemed 
perhaps  a  trifle  higher,  ranging  in  height 
from  one  hundred  to  a  hundred  and  eighty 
feet,  the  crest  in  places  broken  into  crenelated 
turrets. 

"Well,"  said  Rob,  "this  is  the  celebrated 
nm  of  the  Ramparts.  I  must  confess  I  am 
disappointed.  I  think  the  Yukon  beats  this 
in  a  great  many  places.  They  may  tip  this 
off  as  a  big  attraction  for  tourists,  but  it's 
too  far  to  come  for  the  show,  in  my  estima- 
tion." 

John,  busy  charting  the  channel  on  his  map, 
nodded  his  head  in  affirmation.  "How  wide 
do  you  think  it  is  here,  Rob?"  he  asked,  and 

134 


UNDER  THE  ARCTIC  CIRCLE 

Rob  was  obliged  to  ask  some  of  the  boat 
officials  as  to  that.  They  told  him  that  the 
river  was  from  three  himdred  to  five  hundred 
yards  wide  at  this  place,  and  that  there  were 
two  great  bends  in  the  six  miles  of  the  run 
between  the  shut-in  walls. 

"How  far  is  it  to  the  Arctic  Circle,  Uncle 
Dick?"  demanded  Jesse  of  their  leader  when 
finally  he  came  on  deck  after  finishing  his 
work  in  his  state-room. 

The  latter  rubbed  his  chin  for  a  time  before 
he  could  reply.  "Well,"  said  he,  "I  don't 
know  just  where  it  is,  but  it's  somewhere  on 
ahead  of  Fort  Good  Hope,  and  we'll  strike 
Fort  Good  Hope  now  just  beyond  the  foot  of 
the  Ramparts.  We'll  say  that  some  time  in 
the  night  we'll  pass  the  Circle." 

"Hurrah  for  that!"  exclaimed  Rob,  and 
the  other  boys  also  became  excited. 

"What  does  the  Circle  look  like?"  asked 
Jesse,  with  much  interest. 

"Well,"  replied  his  imcle,  "I  don't  think 
it  looks  like  anything  in  particiilar.  But  I 
think  we'll  feel  the  bimip  when  we  nm  over 
it  in  the  night.  I  can  assure  you  of  that. 
Also  I  can  assure  you  that,  once  you  get  above 
it,  at  the  end  of  our  northern  journey,  you'll 
see  a  country  different  from  any  you  have 
seen.    You  hardly  realize,  no  doubt,  the  great 

10  135 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

extent  of  this  tremendous  run  from  the  Rockies 
to  the  sea." 

Meantime  the  boat  had  been  continuing 
its  progress  steadily.  It  required  about  forty- 
five  minutes  to  complete  the  run  of  the  bolder 
part  of  the  shores  known  as  the  Ramparts. 
Once  below,  there  was  to  be  seen,  even  in  the 
faint  midnight  light,  the  scattered  buildings 
of  that  far-northern  post  known  as  Good 
Hope. 

The  boys,  with  all  the  rest  of  the  passengers, 
went  ashore  here  and  prowled  about  the  curi- 
ous old  place,  examining  with  much  interest 
the  mission  school,  the  church,  and  the  garden. 
Rob  was  able  to  make  a  picture  of  the  inte- 
rior of  the  church,  putting  his  camera  on  a 
pile  of  hymn-books  and  making  a  long-time 
exposure. 

The  post  trader  told  him  later  something 
of  the  history  of  this  curious  building  which 
for  some  time  had  stood  here  upon  the  utmost 
borders  of  civilization. 

"You  see  all  the  decorations  and  frescoes 
of  the  church,  just  like  those  in  a  cathedral  of 
the  Old  World,"  said  he.  "It  was  all  done 
by  a  yoimg  priest  known  as  Brother  Ant  el, 
now  gone  to  his  rest.  The  church  was  built 
thirty  years  ago  by  Bishop  Clute,  of  Little 
Slave  Lake,  who  brought  up  Brother  Antel 

136 


UNDER  THE  ARCTIC  CIRCLE 

from  that  lower  mission.  The  altar  is  con- 
sidered an  astonishing  thing  to  be  fovmd  here, 
almost  directly  under  the  Arctic  Circle." 

They  all  stood  with  their  hats  off  in  this 
curious  and  interesting  structure  of  the  Far 
North,  hardly  being  able  to  realize  that  they 
were  now  so  far  beyond  the  land  where  such 
things  ordinarily  are  seen. 

"The  decorations  are  fine  and  the  frescoes 
splendid,"  said  Jesse  to  John,  as  they  passed 
outside  the  door,  "but  I  don't  see  why  Father 
Antel  has  the  angels  playing  on  the  mandolin. 
I  didn't  know  they  had  mandolins  that  long 
ago." 

"Never  mind  about  that,  Jesse,"  said  Rob, 
reprovingly.  "You  mustn't  make  light  of 
anything  of  the  kind.  You  must  remember 
that  these  Slavic  Indians,  who  are  the  only 
people  who  come  here  for  services,  are  most 
impressed  by  pictures  which  they  can  see  and 
tmderstand.  I  suppose  it's  all  right.  At  any 
rate,  it's  an  astonishing  thing  to  find  such  a 
church  away  up  here,  even  if  it  had  angels 
listening  to  an  H.  B.  phonograph." 

The  boat  remained  at  Good  Hope  all  too 
short  a  time  to  suit  them,  because  all  our 
yoimg  travelers  were  anxious  to  go  to  the 
top  of  a  certain  hill,  from  which  it  was  said 
they  could  have  a  view  of  the  Midnight  Sun, 

137 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

which  had  disappeared  behind  the  ridge  of 
the  hills  back  of  the  fort  itself.  Indeed,  one 
of  the  crew  ascended  this  eminence,  and 
claimed  that  he  had  made  a  photograph  of 
the  Midnight  Sun.  Certainly,  all  of  the  boys 
were  able  to  testify  that  it  was  still  light  at 
four  o'clock  in  the  morning,  for  they  had  re- 
mained up  that  late,  eagerly  prowling  around 
through  the  curious  and  interesting  scenes  of 
the  far-northern  trading-post. 

So  wearied  were  they  by  their  long  experi- 
ence afoot  on  the  previous  day  that  on  the 
morning  of  July  7th  they  slept  a  little  later 
than  usual,  although  their  total  hours  of 
rest  were  no  more  than  two  or  three.  Uncle 
Dick  was  before  them  on  the  deck  this  time, 
and  reproached  them  very  much  when  they 
appeared. 

"Well,  young  men,"  said  he,  "did  you  feel 
any  heavy  jar,  or  hear  a  dull,  sickening  thud, 
some  time  about  half  an  hoiu-  or  an  hotir 
ago?" 

"You  don't  mean  that  we've  passed  the 
Circle,  do  you.  Uncle  Dick?"  queried  John. 

"We  certainly  have.  I  don't  know  just 
where  it  was.  It's  seven-thirty  o'clock  now, 
and  somewhere  between  here  and  Fort  Good 
Hope  we  crossed  the  Arctic  Circle!" 

"I  can't  beHeve  it!"  said  Rob.  "Why, 
138 


UNDER  THE  ARCTIC  CIRCLE 

look,  the  weather  is  perfectly  fine,  and  there 
isn't  any  ice  to  be  seen.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  are  plenty  of  mosquitoes.  What's  more, 
just  back  at  Fort  Good  Hope  we  have  seen 
that  they  can  raise  things  in  their  gardens. 
I  would  never  have  believed  these  things 
about  this  northern  country  if  I  had  not  seen 
them  myself." 

Through  the  soft,  mild  light  of  the  sub- 
Arctic  morning  the  great  steamboat  churned 
on  her  north-boimd  way.  At  ten  o'clock  they 
passed  an  Indian  village  which  they  were  told 
was  called  Chicago — no  doubt  named  by  some 
of  the  Klondikers  who  were  practically  cast 
away  here  twenty  years  earlier.  John  put  it 
down  on  his  map  imder  that  name,  as  indeed 
it  is  charted  in  all  the  authentic  maps  of  that 
upper  region.  They  were  told  that  a  good 
number  of  Indians  come  here  to  make  their 
winter  hunt. 

An  tmeventful  day,  during  which  the  boat 
logged  a  great  many  miles  in  her  steady  prog- 
ress, was  passed,  imtil  at  ten  o'clock  they 
tied  up  at  the  next  to  the  last  of  the  Hudson's 
Bay  posts  on  the  Mackenzie  River,  known  as 
Arctic  Red  River,  located  at  sixty-seven  de- 
grees and  thirty  minutes  north  latitude. 

"Oh,  look,  look,  fellows!"  exclaimed  John, 
as  they  pulled  into  the  landing  here.    "Now 

139 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

we're  beginning  to  get  some  real  stuff!  I  feel 
as  though  we  were  pretty  near  to  the  end  of 
the  world.     Look  yonder!" 

He  pointed  to  where,  along  the  beach  at  the 
foot  of  the  bluff,  there  lay  two  encampments 
of  natives. 

"Look  at  the  difference  in  the  boats!" 
exclaimed  John,  running  to  the  side  of  the 
boat.  "There  are  whale-boats  with  sails, 
something  like  those  we  saw  out  on  the  Alaska 
coast.    What  are  they.  Uncle  Dick?" 

"Those  are  Eskimos,  my  young  friend," 
said  their  leader,  "and  what  you  see  there 
are  indeed  whale-boats.  The  Huskies  come 
up  the  river  this  far  to  trade  with  the  other 
Indians,  and  with  the  white  men  at  this  post. 
This  is  about  as  far  as  they  come.  They 
get  their  boats  in  trade  from  the  whale-ships 
somewhere  along  the  Arctic.  As  John  says, 
this  is  really  a  curious  and  interesting  scene 
that  you  see. 

"Over  yonder,  I  think,  are  the  Loucheux. 
I  don't  think  they  are  as  strong  and  able  a 
class  of  savages  as  the  Huskies.  At  least, 
that's  what  the  traders  tell  me." 

"Well,  they've  got  wall  tents,  an5rv7ay," 
said  Jesse,  who  was  fixing  his  field-glasses  on 
the  encampments.  "Where  did  they  get 
them?     From  the  traders,  I  suppose.     My, 

140 


UNDER  THE  ARCTIC  CIRCLE 

but  they  look  ragged  and  poor!    I  shotildn't 
wonder  if  they  were  about  starved." 

By  this  time  the  boat  was  coming  to  her 
landing,  and  the  boys  hurried  ashore  to  see 
what  they  could  find  in  this  ciuious  and  in- 
teresting encampment. 

There  were  two  trading-posts  at  Arctic  Red 
River — the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  post,  and 
that  of  an  independent  trading  company, 
both  on  top  of  the  high  bluff  and  reached  by 
a  stairway  which  ran  part  way  up  the  face. 

Some  of  the  tribesmen  from  the  encamp- 
ment now  hurried  down  to  meet  the  boat — 
tall  and  stalwart  Eskimos  in  fur-trimmed  cos- 
timies  which  the  boys  examined  with  the 
greatest  of  interest  and  excitement,  feeling 
as  they  did  that  now  indeed  they  were  coming 
into  the  actual  North  of  which  they  had  read 
many  years  before. 

"Uncle  Dick  is  right,"  said  Rob.    "These 

Eskimos  are  bigger  and  stronger  than  any  of 

the  Indians  we  have  seen.    I  don't  think  the 

women  are  so  bad-looking,  either,  although 

the  children  look  awfully  dirty." 

"It's   Hke   Alaska,    isn't   it?"    said   John. 

"Look  at  the  parkies  they  wear,  even  here 

in  the  summer-time.    That's  just  like  the  way 

Alaska  Indians  and  white  men  dress  in  the 

winter-time." 

141 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

"Well,"  said  Jesse,  "maybe  that's  the  only 
clothes  they've  got.  "I'll  warrant  you  they 
have  on  their  best,  because  this  is  the  great 
annual  holiday  for  them,  when  the  Company 
boat  comes  in." 

Rob  looked  at  his  watch.  "  Twelve  o'clock !" 
said  he.  "I  can't  tell  whether  the  sim  is  up 
yet  or  not,  because  it  is  so  cloudy.  Anyhow, 
we  can  say  that  we  are  now  under  the  Mid- 
night Sun,  can't  we? — ^because  here  we  are 
right  among  the  Eskimos." 

Uncle  Dick  joined  them  after  a  while, 
laughing.  "Talk  about  traders!"  said  he. 
"No  Jew  and  no  Arab  in  the  world  would  be 
safe  here  among  these  Huskies!  They  are 
the  stiffest  traders  I  ever  saw  in  my  life. 
You  can't  get  them  to  shade  their  prices  the 
least  bit  on  earth. 

" These  boats,"  he  continued,  "are  crammed 
full  of  white-fox  skins  and  all  sorts  of  stuff — 
beaver,  marten,  and  mink — and  some  mighty 
good  ftir  at  that.  But  those  people  haven't 
seen  any  white  men's  goods  for  at  least  a 
year,  and  yet  they  act  as  if  they  hadn't  an 
intention  in  the  world  of  parting  with  their 
furs.  Look  here,"  he  continued,  holding  out 
his  hand. 

The  boys  bent  over  curiously  to  see  what 

he  had. 

142 


UNDER  THE  ARCTIC  CIRCLE 

"Stone  things,"  said  John.  "What  are 
they?" 

"What  they  call  'labrets,'"  said  his  tincle, 
taking  up  one  of  the  little  articles.  "They 
make  them  out  of  stone,  don't  you  see? — with 
a  groove  in  the  middle.  If  you  will  look  close 
at  some  of  these  Eskimo  women,  or  even  men, 
you  will  find  that  they  have  a  hole  through 
their  lower  lip,  and  some  of  them  wear  this 
little  'labret.'  Here  also  are  some  made  out 
of  walrus  ivory." 

"Well,  now  I  know  what  it  was  I  saw  that 
tall  Husky  have  in  his  face  awhile  ago,"  said 
John.  "Something  was  sticking  through  his 
lower  lip,  and  I  know  now  it  was  the  glass 
stopper  of  a  bottle  of  Worcester  sauce." 

Uncle  Dick  laughed.  "Correct!"  said  he. 
**I  saw  the  same  fellow,  and,  now  that  you 
mention  it,  I  gave  him  three  dollars  for  that 
glass  stopper  from  the  bottle !  I  don't  suppose 
any  one  will  believe  the  story,  but  it's  true. 

"If  you  get  a  chance  to  trade  any  of  these 
Huskies  out  of  one  of  their  pipes,  do  it,  boys," 
said  he,  "especially  if  you  can  get  one  of  the 
old  bluestone  pipe  bowls.  Pay  as  much  as 
five  dollars  for  it — which  would  be  ten  'skins* 
up  here.  I  don't  suppose  you  could  find  one 
for  a  himdred  dollars  anywhere  in  the  museimis 
of  our  country,  for  they  are  very  rare.    I  have 

143 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

my  eye  on  one,  and  I  hope  before  we  get  out 
of  this  northern  country  to  close  a  trade  for 
it,  but  the  old  fellow  is  mighty  stiff." 

"You  say  that  five  dollars  is  ten  'skins'  up 
here,  Uncle  Dick,"  commented  Rob.  "At 
Fort  Smith  and  Fort  Simpson  a  'skin'  was 
only  thirty  cents — three  to  the  dollar." 

"That  custom  varies  at  the  different  posts," 
was  Uncle  Dick's  reply.  "Of  course  you 
tinderstand  that  a  'skin'  is  not  a  skin  at  all, 
but  simply  a  unit  of  value.  Sometimes  a 
trader  will  give  an  Indian  a  bowlful  of  bullets 
representing  the  total  value  in  'skins'  of  the 
fur  which  he  has  brought  in.  Each  one  of 
those  bullets  will  be  a  'skin.'  The  Indian 
doesn't  know  an3rthing  about  dollars  or  cents, 
and  indeed  very  little  of  value  at  all.  You  have 
to  show  him  everything  in  an  objective  way. 
So  when  the  Indian  wants  to  trade  for  white 
men's  goods,  he  asks  for  his  particular  bowl 
of  bullets — which,  child-like,  he  has  left  with 
the  trader  himself.  The  traders  are,  however, 
honest.  They  never  cheat  the  Indian,  in  that 
way  at  least.  So  the  trader  hands  down  the 
bowl  of  bullets.  The  Indian  sees  what  he 
wants  on  the  shelves  behind  the  counter,  and 
the  trader  holds  up  as  many  fingers  as  the 
value  is  in  'skins.'  The  Indian  picks  out  that 
many  bullets  from  his  bowl  and  hands  them 

144 


UNDER  THE  ARCTIC  CIRCLE 

to  the  trader,  and  the  trader  hands  him  his 
goods. 

"You  can  see,  therefore,  that  the  Indian's 
bowlful  of  biillets  in  this  country  would  not 
buy  him  as  much  fur  as  he  would  have  gotten 
farther  down  the  river.  At  the  same  time, 
this  is  farther  north,  and  the  freight  charges 
are  necessarily  high.  Perhaps  there  is  just 
a  little  in  the  fact  that  competition  of  the 
independents  is  not  as  keen  here  as  it  is 
farther  to  the  south! 

''But  whatever  be  the  price  of  a  'skin,'" 
Uncle  Dick  went  on,  somewhat  ruefully, 
"these  Huskies  take  it  out  of  us  cheechackos 
when  we  come  in.  We  passed  the  last  of  the 
Slavics  at  Fort  Good  Hope.  Now  we  are 
among  the  Loucheux.  But  these  Huskies 
run  over  the  Loucheux  as  if  they  were  not 
there." 

There  was  plenty  of  time  given  to  the  pas- 
sengers at  this  landing  to  visit  the  boats  and 
encampments  of  the  natives,  so  that  our 
yoiuig  investigators  were  able  to  obtain  con- 
siderable information  about  the  methods  of 
the  country. 

They  went  aboard  one  whale-boat  and  dis- 
covered that  its  owner,  a  stalwart  Husky, 
had  brought  in  a  hundred  marten  and  a 
hundred  mink,  and  half  as  many  white  foxes 

145 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

and  lynx.  He  explained  that  he  was  going 
to  buy  another  whale-boat  of  the  Hudson's 
Bay  Company,  and  that  he  had  to  pay  yet 
seventy  marten,  besides  all  this  other  fvir, 
in  order  to  get  his  boat,  which  would  be  de- 
livered to  him  next  year.  The  boys  figured 
that  he  was  paying  about  twenty-five  himdred 
dollars  for  an  ordinary  whale-boat,  perhaps 
thirty  years  old,  and,  inquiring  as  to  the  cost 
of  such  a  boat  along  the  coast,  found  that  it 
rarely  was  more  than  about  three  or  four 
hundred  dollars  new! 

"Well,"  said  Rob,  "I  can  begin  to  see  how 
there's  money  in  this  fur  business,  after  all. 
A  sack  of  flour  brings  twenty-five  dollars 
here.  A  cup  of  flour  sells  for  one  'skin,'  or 
fifty  cents.  These  people,  Huskies  and  all, 
know  the  value  of  matches,  and  they  jolly- 
well  have  to  pay  for  them.  I've  been  figur- 
ing, and  I  find  out  that  the  traders  make  about 
five  thousand  per  cent,  profit  on  the  matches 
they  sell  in  the  northern  coimtry.  Every- 
thing else  is  in  proportion." 

Uncle  Dick  grinned  at  them  as  they  bent 
over  their  books  or  notes.  "Well,"  he  said, 
**you  remind  me  of  the  methods  of  old  White- 
man,  a  trader  out  in  the  western  country 
where  I  used  to  live.  People  used  to  kick 
on  what  he  charged  for  needles  and  thread, 

146 


UNDER  THE  ARCTIC  CIRCLE 

and  he  alwa^^s  pointed  out  to  them  that  the 
freight  in  that  western  country  was  very- 
heavy  indeed.  I  suppose  that's  the  answer 
of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  to  the  high 
cost  of  hving  among  the  Eskimos." 

"How  much  farther  north  are  we  going, 
Uncle  Dick?"  asked  Rob,  suddenly.  "I  mean, 
how  soon  do  we  leave  the  steamboat?" 

"Quicker  than  you  will  like,"  said  he. 
"This  is  the  next  to  the  last  stop  that  we'll 
make.  On  ahead  eighty  miles  is  good  old 
Fort  McPherson,  on  the  Peel  River,  and  that 
is  as  far  as  we  go.  From  this  time  on  you 
can  make  the  memorandum  on  your  photo- 
graphs and  your  notes  in  your  diary  that  you 
are  working  under  the  Midnight  Sun  and  north 
of  the  Arctic  Circle!" 

"I  didn't  think  we  would  ever  be  here!" 
said  John,  drawing  a  long  breath.  "My, 
hasn't  it  been  easy,  and  hasn't  it  been 
quick?  I  can  hardly  realize  that  we  have 
got  this  far  away  from  home  in  so  little  a 
while." 

"Yes,"  said  Rob,  "when  we  were  back  there 
loafing  aroimd  on  the  portages  and  in  some 
of  the  more  important  stops  I  began  to  think 
we  were  going  to  be  stranded  up  here  in  the 
winter-time.  Well,  maybe  we'll  get  through 
yet,  Uncle  Dick.    What  do  you  think?" 

147 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

"Maybe  so,"  replied  Uncle  Dick.  "And 
now,  if  you've  got  your  pictures  all  fixed  up, 
I  think  you'd  better  turn  in.  You've  got  to 
remember  that  you  sleep  by  the  clock  up 
here,  and  not  by  the  sun." 


X 

FARTHEST   NORTH 

"  T  OOK!"  cried  Rob  to  his  two  companions 
I  J  as  they  stood  on  the  far  deck  of  the 
steamboat .    "Look  yonder ! ' ' 

He  was  pointing  on  ahead  through  the  low- 
hanging  mist  and  drizzling  rain  which  had 
marked  the  last  few  hours  of  their  last  day 
of  steamboat  travel. 

"What  is  it?"  demanded  Jesse,  also  crowd- 
ing toward  the  bow. 

"I  know.  It's  the  Rockies!"  cried  John. 
"Uncle  Dick  told  me  that  those  mountains 
were  the  most  northerly  spur  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains.  It's  where  they  go  farthest  north. 
So,  fellows,  we've  been  somewhere,  haven't 
we?  Uncle  Dick  was  right — this  is  the  great- 
est trip  we've  had,  as  sure  as  you're  bom." 

"  But  look  yonder  on  ahead,"  restmied  Jesse. 
"What  river  is  that  we're  turning  into  now?" 

The  booming  whistle  of  the  great  steamer 
had  called  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  they 

149 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

were  now  altering  their  course.  The  Mackenzie 
River  was  entering  the  narrow  mouth  of  a 
swift  stream  against  which  it  took  all  their 
power  to  make  any  headway  at  all. 

Along  the  banks  of  this  river  the  trees 
seemed  to  be  growing  taller  and  stronger, 
whether  willows  or  spruces  that  lined  the 
banks,  and  the  shores  themselves  were  bolder. 

"Call  Uncle  Dick,"  said  Rob.  "He's  writing 
in  his  room.  He  knows  all  about  this,  I 
expect." 

So  they  called  Uncle  Dick  and  asked  him 
about  the  new  river. 

"Yes,"  said  he,  "this  is  the  Peel  River. 
It  comes  down  out  of  the  Rockies,  as  you  see. 
You  are  now  pretty  near  to  the  upper  end  of 
the  whole  entire  Rocky  Mountain  system. 
We  are  going  to  cross  the  most  northerly 
part  of  the  Rockies,  and  the  lowest  pass — 
it  is  only  about  a  thousand  feet  above  sea- 
level,  and  only  about  a  hundred  miles  south 
of  the  Arctic  Sea  itself. 

"This  river  here,  the  Peel,"  he  continued, 
*'no  doubt  offered  the  old  traders  a  better 
building-site  for  a  post  than  the  big  river 
would  have  done  below  the  mouth.  The 
Mackenzie  wanders  on  down  for  a  himdred 
miles  through  its  delta.  Of  course  the  natives 
trap  all  through  this  coimtry  for  a  hundred 

ISO 


FARTHEST  NORTH 

miles  or  more,  but  they  tell  me  the  site  of 
Fort  McPherson  is  a  favorite  one  with  them, 
and  they  all  know  it.  Pretty  soon  we'll  be 
there." 

It  was  about  3.15  of  that  same  day,  ac- 
cording to  Rob's  diary,  when  at  last  the 
steamboat,  after  gallantly  bucking  the  stiff 
current  of  the  Peel  River  for  some  hours, 
pulled  in  at  the  foot  of  a  high  bank  at  the 
summit  of  which  there  was  located  the  most 
northerly  of  all  the  Hudson's  Bay  posts,  and 
the  one  with  least  competition  to-day — old 
Fort  McPherson  of  venerable  history. 

On  the  narrow  beach  at  the  foot  of  the  hill 
lay  an  encampment  of  Eskimos,  their  huts 
rudely  built  of  hides,  pieces  of  wall  tents,  and 
canvas  stretched  over  tepee-like  frames.  Sev- 
eral of  their  whale-boats,  well  rigged  and  well 
cared  for,  lay  moored  to  the  bank.  All  along 
the  beach  prowled  the  gaunt  dogs  which  be- 
longed to  the  Eskimos,  and  yet  other  young 
dogs  were  tied  to  stakes  so  that  they  might 
not  escape. 

These  stalwart  savages,  twenty  or  thirty 
of  them,  came  now  and  joined  the  motley 
throng  which  crowded  down  to  the  boat 
landing.  Here  might  be  seen  the  grizzled  old 
post  trader  who  had  been  here  for  forty  years, 
and  near  to  him  the  red  uniforms  of  a  pair 
11  151 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

of  Moiinted  Policemen  who  were  waiting  for 
this  boat  to  take  them  back  to  civilization. 
A  few  others  of  the  motinted  force,  one  or 
two  nondescripts,  and  a  scattered  and  respect- 
ful fringe  of  Loucheux  Indians  who  held 
back  at  the  rear  went  to  make  up  the  strange 
throng  who  greeted  the  last  and  only  boat  of 
the  year. 

It  was  a  great  event  for  these  far-northern 
dwellers  when  the  steamer  came.  A  great 
event  it  was,  too,  for  these  young  adventurers 
who  had  gone  north  with  the  brigade,  who 
now  had  seen  that  brigade  dwindle  and  scatter 
over  more  than  fifteen  hundred  miles  of  tm- 
known  country;  and  who  now  saw  the  rem- 
nant of  the  brigade  proper,  one  steamboat  and 
a  scow,  come  to  anchor  here  at  the  farthest 
north  of  the  fur  trade  of  this  continent! 

The  boys  were  quickly  on  shore,  nmning 
aroimd  with  their  cameras  among  the  sav- 
ages. They  foimd  the  Huskies,  as  they  always 
were  called,  a  much  more  imposing  tribe  than 
any  of  the  Indians  they  had  seen.  The  men 
were  taller  and  more  robust,  more  fearless  and 
self-respecting,  even  arrogant  in  their  deport- 
ment. The  women  were  a  strapping  lot. 
Some  of  them  wore  the  blue  line  tattoo  on  the 
lower  lip,  showing  them  to  be  married  women; 
others,  young  girls  not  imcomely  to  look  upon. 

152 


FARTHEST  NORTH 

All  were  clad  in  the  fur  garments  of  the 
North,  even  though  it  now  was  summer-time, 
the  date  of  their  arrival  being  July  8th. 
Over  the  fur  garments  most  of  them  wore  a 
dirty  cotton  covering,  supposedly  to  keep 
their  fur  garments  clean.  The  women  usually 
slipped  their  arms  out  of  the  sleeves  of  their 
loose,  chemise-like  jackets,  so  that  with  their 
double  coverings  it  was  sometimes  difficult 
to  tell  where  they  kept  their  hands. 

To  the  surprise  of  the  boys,  the  Eskimos 
insisted  on  receiving  money  or  presents  of 
some  kind  before  they  would  allow  themselves 
to  be  photographed.  They  were  willing  to 
trade,  but,  as  their  Uncle  Dick  had  warned 
them,  they  proved  to  be  most  avaricious 
traders.  A  * '  labret ' '  of  ivory  or  even  of  wood 
they  valued  at  four  or  five  dollars — or  asked 
so  much  as  that  at  first.  A  bone-handled 
drill,  made  of  a  piece  of  seal  rib  with  a  nail 
for  a  point  to  the  drill,  was  priced  accordingly. 
A  pair  of  mukluks,  or  native  seal  boots,  was 
difficult  to  find  at  all,  while  as  for  the  furs 
with  which  their  boats  were  crowded  they 
professed  indifference  whether  or  not  any 
one  piurchased  them. 

"Wait  awhile,"  said  Uncle  Dick.  "Be  as 
indifferent  as  they  are.  About  the  time  the 
boat  turns  around  to  go  back  south  again 

153 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

you'll  see  them  begin  to  trade.    I  might  have 
bought  my  bluestone  pipe  if  I'd  had  time." 

''I'll  tell  you,"  said  Jesse.  " That  big  fellow 
down  there — I  call  him  Simon — he's  got  one 
of  those  bluestone  pipe  bowls  that  you  told 
about.  He  says  it's  old,  and  he  wants  ten 
dollars  for  it.  They  imderstand  what  a  dollar 
is;  they  don't  trade  in  skins  like  these  other 
tribes." 

"Well,  you  see,"  said  Uncle  Dick,  "these 
men  all  have  met  the  whale-boats  which  come 
aroimd  through  Bering  Sea.  They  know 
more  about  the  white  men's  ways  than  the 
inland  tribes.  As  you  see,  they  are  a  much 
superior  class  of  people." 

"That's  so,"  said  Rob,  who  was  just  back 
from  photographing  among  the  Loucheux 
villages  located  on  top  of  the  hill,  timidly  re- 
mote from  the  Eskimos.  "Those  people  up 
on  the  hill  are  about  starving,  and  so  ragged 
and  dirty  I  don't  see  how  they  live  at  all." 

"They've  got  religion,  just  the  same,"  said 
John.  "I've  been  down  making  a  picture 
of  the  mission  church.  I  bought  two  hymn- 
books  for  one  'skin'  each  of  the  native  preacher. 
Here  they  are,  all  in  the  native  language, 
don't  you  see?  And  I  bought  a  Book  of 
Common  Prayer,  printed  in  Loucheiix,  too." 

"Well,  I've  got  three  bone  fish-hooks  and 
154 


FARTHEST  NORTH 

a  drill,"  said  Jesse,  triumphantly.  "I  don't 
know  whether  I'll  have  any  money  left  before 
long.  You  see,  it's  hard  to  wait  till  the  boat 
starts  back,  because  some  one  else  might  get 
these  things  before  we  do." 

"Is  any  one  going  out?"  asked  Rob. 

"Yes,  the  inspector  of  the  Moimted  Police 
and  one  man  are  going  out — the  first  time 
in  two  years,"  repHed  Jesse,  proud  of  his  in- 
formation. "Two  new  men  that  came  with 
us  are  going  up  to  Herschel  Island.  There  is  a 
four-ma,n  post  up  here,  with  the  barracks 
beyond  the  trader's  house.  They  have  to 
travel  a  himdred  miles  or  so  in  the  winter- 
time, and  it's  more  than  a  hundred  miles  by 
boat  from  here  to  Herschel  Island.  The  In- 
spector of  Police  who  is  going  down  there  told 
me  he  was  going  to  hire  one  of  these  Huskies 
to  take  him  down  in  his  whale-boat." 

"They  tell  me  the  old  trader  has  not  been 
outside  for  more  than  forty  years,  or  at  least 
not  more  than  once,"  added  Rob  to  the  gen- 
eral fund  of  information.  "He  came  from  the 
Scotch  Hebrides  here  when  he  was  yoimg,  and 
now  he's  old.  He  has  a  native  Indian  wife 
and  no  one  knows  how  many  children  nmning 
around  up  there." 

"I  suppose  he's  going  to  take  care  of  the 
district  inspector  who  came  down  from  Fort 

155 


VOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

Simpson  with  us  on  the  boat,"  ventured  John, 
who  had  made  good  friends  with  the  latter 
gentleman  in  the  course  of  the  long  voyage. 

"Well,"  said  Jesse,  dubiously,  "it  looks  to 
me  like  there  was  going  to  be  a  celebration 
of  some  sort.  All  the  white  men  have  gone 
up  to  the  trader's  house,  and  they  don't  come 
out.  I  could  hear  some  sort  of  singing  and 
going-on  in  there  when  I  came  by." 

Rob  smiled,  not  altogether  approvingly. 
"It's  easy  to  understand,"  said  he.  "All 
these  people  at  the  trading-posts  wait  for  the 
boat  to  come.  It's  their  big  annual  jamboree, 
I  suppose.  There's  many  a  bottle  of  alcohol 
that's  gone  up  the  hill  since  this  boat  landed, 
I  can  promise  you  that ;  and  it's  alcohol  they 
drink  up  here.  Some  one  gets  most  of  the 
Scotch  whisky  before  it  gets  this  far  north." 

"They  won't  let  them  trade  whisky  to  the 
natives,  though;  that's  against  the  law  of 
Canada,"  said  John.  "The  first  thing  this 
old  Simon  man  down  the  beach  asked  for  was 
whisky.  As  for  the  Loucheux,  I  don't  suppose 
they  ever  see  any — and  a  good  thing  they 
don't." 

"Did  you  see  the  dishpan  that  old  girl 
with  the  blue  lip  had  in  front  of  her  place?" 
inquired  Jesse,  after  a  time.  "She  had  taken 
a  rock  and  pounded  a  hole  down  in  the  hard 

156 


FARTHEST  NORTH 

ground.  Then  she  poured  water  in  that. 
That's  their  dishpan  —  and  I  don't  think 
they  have  changed  the  water  for  a  week!" 

"I  should  say  not!"  said  Rob.  "I  wouldn't 
want  to  live  in  that  camp,  if  I  could  help  it. 
Did  you  see  how  they  eat?  They  don't  cook 
their  fish  at  all,  but  keep  it  raw  and  let  it 
almost  spoil.  Then  you  can  see  them — if  you 
can  stand  it — sitting  aroimd  a  bowl  in  a  circle, 
all  of  them  dipping  their  hands  into  the  mess. 
Ugh!    I  couldn't  stand  to  watch  them,  even. 

"There's  a  good-looking  wall  tent  down  the 
beach,  though,"  continued  Rob,  "and  I  don't 
know  whether  you've  been  there  or  not. 
There's  a  white  man  by  the  name  of  Storken- 
berg  there — a  Scandinavian  sailor  that  has 
drifted  down  here  from  some  of  the  boats  for 
reasons  best  known  to  himself.  He  tells  me 
he's  been  among  the  Eskimos  for  quite  a  while. 
He's  married  to  a  sort  of  half-breed  Eskimo 
woman — she's  almost  white — and  they've  got 
one  Httle  baby,  a  girl.  Rather  cute  she  was, 
too." 

"It's  funny  how  people  live  away  up  here," 
mused  Jesse.  "I  didn't  know  so  many  queer 
things  could  happen  this  far  north.  Why, 
there  seems  to  be  a  sort  of  settlement  here, 
after  all,  doesn't  there?" 

"They  have  to  live  through  the  winter," 
157 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

smiled  John,  "if  they  don't  go  back  on  that 
boat.  It  will  be  here  for  a  few  days,  and  when 
she  turns  back  it's  all  off  for  a  full  year. 

"There's  an  independent  trader  with  a 
boat-load  of  fnrs  which  he  is  going  to  take 
out  over  the  Rat  Portage  and  into  the  Yukon, 
the  same  way  that  we  are  going,"  volimteered 
John,  also  after  a  little.  "I've  been  down 
talking  with  him.  He  says  it  will  take  ten 
days  from  here  to  the  simimit,  the  best  we 
can  do,  and  as  to  when  we  can  start  no  one 
can  tell.  Uncle  Dick  told  me  we  would  have 
to  wait  for  our  supplies  imtil  the  general 
annual  jamboree  cooled  down  a  little  bit. 
Then  we  will  get  our  canoe  off  the  boat  and 
rig  her  up." 

Jesse  stood  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets, 
looking  about  the  motley  scene  surroimding 
them.  "I  don't  care  much  for  the  fur  trade," 
said  he,  slowly,  after  a  time.  "It  looks  all 
dirty,  and  it's  a  cruel  thing.  I  don't  like  to 
trap  things,  anyhow,  very  much  any  more 
since  I  got  older.  Besides,  it  doesn't  look 
nice  to  me.  These  people  are  so  poor  they 
can  barely  live  from  one  year  to  the  next, 
and  the  Company  could  have  changed  that 
in  a  hundred  years  if  it  had  wanted  to." 

"Well,  there's  the  mission-work  among 
them  even  here,"  commented  Rob.     "That 

158 


FARTHEST  NORTH 

gives  them  a  little  bit  more  life.  They  learn 
how  to  read  a  little  bit  sometimes,  and  they 
get  to  using  the  needle  better  than  they  did 
before.  It  helps  them  make  things  they  can 
sell — moccasins  and  bead-work — don't  you 
think?" 

"Huh!"  said  Jesse.  "Much  money  they 
get  out  of  that.  When  that  boat's  gone  their 
market's  gone  for  the  full  year,  isn't  it? 
No,  I  don't  like  it.  Of  course  I'm  glad  we've 
come  up  here  and  seen  all  this — I  wouldn't 
have  missed  it  for  the  world.  But  now  I 
know  more  about  the  great  fur  companies 
than  I  ever  did  before.  Old  ones  or  new  ones, 
they  all  look  alike  to  me,  and  I  don't  like 
them." 

"Well,"  said  Rob,  "if  everything  was  just 
the  way  we  left  it  back  home,  there  wouldn't 
be  any  fun  in  going  traveling  anyvr^here  in 
the  world.  It's  the  strangeness  of  this  and 
the  wildness  that  make  it  interesting,  isn't  it? 

"And  we  are  in  a  strange,  wild  coimtr}'," 
he  continued.  "Where  else  can  you  go  in  aU 
the  world  and  find  as  many  new  and  out-of- 
the-way  places  as  this?  From  where  we 
stand  here  you  can  go  over  east  into  a  cotmtry 
that  no  white  man  knows  about.  We  have 
passed  beyond  the  place  where  Sir  Jolin 
Franklin  was  lost.     If  you  go  southwest  you 

159 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

can  get  to  Dawson,  maybe — there's  the  tomb- 
stones of  the  four  Mounted  Pohcemen  who 
tried  to  get  across  from  Dawson  and  didn't. 
I've  got  a  photograph  of  their  tombstones; 
the  men  just  hauled  them  up  the  hill  with 
dogs  to-day  and  put  them  up  not  more  than 
an  hour  ago. 

"And  then,"  he  went  on,  "north  of  here 
runs  the  Arctic,  with  who  knows  what  beyond 
the  shore-line.  South  and  west  of  the  place 
where  we  will  cross  the  Canadian  and  Amer- 
ican line  there's  a  lot  of  country  no  man  knows 
much  about.  And  everjrwhere  you  looked  as 
we  came  through,  east  and  west  of  the  big 
river,  there  was  cotmtry  that  was  mapped, 
but  with  really  little  known  of  it.  The  Liard 
has  been  mapped,  but  that's  all  you  can  say 
about  it.  The  only  way  to  travel  through 
this  cotintry  is  on  the  rivers,  and  when  you 
are  on  one  of  these  rivers  you  don't  have  much 
time  to  see  beyond  the  banks,  believe  me." 

"Well,  it's  kept  me  mighty  busy  with  my 
little  old  map,"  said  John,  "changing  direc- 
tions as  much  as  we  have.  I  wanted  to  ask 
you,  Rob,  whether  I've  got  the  distances  all 
right.  Why  not  check  up  on  the  jimips  in 
our  whole  journey  from  the  start  to  here, 
where  we  are  at  the  end  of  the  trail?" 

"All  right,"  said  Rob,  and  produced  his 
1 60 


FARTHEST  NORTH 

own  memorandum-book  from  his  pocket. 
"I've  got  the  distances  here,  the  way  they 
were  given  to  me  by  the  government  men: 

"From  Athabasca  Landing  to  Pelican  Port- 
age was  one  hundred  and  twenty  miles;  to 
the  Grand  Rapids,  one  hundred  and  sixty-five 
miles;  to  McMurra}^  two  hundred  and  fifty- 
two  miles;  to  Chippewyan,  four  himdred  and 
thirty-seven  miles;  to  Smith's  Landing,  five 
hundred  and  thirty-seven  miles;  to  Fort 
Smith,  below  the  portage,  five  hundred  and 
fifty- three  miles ;  to  Fort  Resolution  on  Great 
Slave  Lake,  seven  himdred  and  forty-five 
miles;  to  Hay  River,  eight  hundred  and 
fifteen  miles;  to  Fort  Providence,  nine  hun- 
dred and  five  miles;  to  Fort  Simpson,  ten 
hundred  and  eighty-five  miles;  to  Fort  Wrig- 
ley,  twelve  hundred  and  sixty-five  miles;  to 
Fort  Norman,  fourteen  himdred  and  thirty- 
seven  miles;  to  Fort  Good  Hope,  sixteen  hun- 
dred and  nine  miles ;  to  Arctic  Red  River,  eigh- 
teen hundred  and  nineteen  miles;  to  Fort 
McPherson,  eighteen  hundred  and  ninety-nine 
miles.  That's  the  way  we  figured  it  out  at 
first,  and  I  guess  it's  about  as  accurate  as  any 
one  can  tell,"  he  concluded. 

John  was  setting  down  these  figures  and 
doing  a  little  figuring  on  the  margin  of  his 
paper.    "We  left  on  May  twenty-ninth,"  said 

i6i 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

he,  "and  got  here  July  eighth — ^forty  days 
into  two  thousand  miles — that  makes  fifty 
miles  a  day  we've  averaged,  including  all  the 
stops.  You  see  that  fifty  miles  a  day,  kept 
up,  gets  you  into  the  thousands  in  time, 
doesn't  it?  After  we  struck  the  steamboat 
we  began  to  raise  the  average." 

"Well,"  said  Jesse,  looking  off  to  the  duU- 
brown  slopes  of  the  timdra-covered  moimtains 
which  lay  to  the  westward,  "if  what  that 
trader-man  told  me  is  true,  we'll  slow  down 
considerably  before  we  get  to  the  top  of  that 
pass  in  the  Rockies  yonder." 

They  were  all  sitting  on  the  crest  of  the 
bluff  of  Fort  McPherson  landing,  where  a 
long  log  slab,  polished  by  many  years  of  use, 
had  been  erected  as  a  sort  of  lookout  bench 
for  the  people  who  live  the  year  aroimd  at 
Fort  McPherson. 

"What  time  is  it,  Rob?"  asked  Jesse,  sud- 
denly. 

Rob  pulled  out  his  watch.  "It's  eleven- 
thirty,"  said  he.  "Get  the  cameras,  boys! 
Here's  a  good  place  for  us,  right  here  at  the 
end  of  the  bench.  It's  almost  midnight. 
Look  over  there!" 

The  three  of  them  looked  as  he  pointed. 
The  Midnight  Sim  of  the  Arctic  hung  low 
on  the  horizon,  but  not  lower  now  than  it 

i6a 


FARTHEST  NORTH 

had  been  for  some  time.  Its  rays,  reflected 
from  the  surface  of  the  Peel  River  just  beyond, 
shone  with  a  pale  luster  such  as  they  had 
never  before  known. 

With  some  sort  of  common  feeling  which 
neither  of  them  could  have  explained,  each 
of  the  three  boys  took  off  his  cap  and  laid  it 
on  the  bench  beside  him  as  he  stood  looking 
at  that  strange  spectacle  given  to  so  few 
travelers  to  see — the  imsinking  Midnight  Sun! 


XI 

THE   MIDNIGHT  SUN 

IT  was  two  o'clock  in  the  morning.  There 
had  been  no  night.  The  sun  had  not 
sunk  at  all  beyond  yonder  dark,  ragged 
fringe  of  the  spruce-trees  marking  the  hori- 
zon. Not  even  the  lower  edge  of  its  disk  had 
been  broken  by  the  top  of  the  tallest  spruce- 
tree.  Yes,  for  one  of  the  few  remaining  nights 
of  that  year  it  had  been  given  to  our  yoimg 
travelers  to  see  the  Midnight  Sun  at  its  lowest 
point. 

It  was  a  strange  sun,  so  it  seemed  to  them 
all.  After  it  had  stmk  far  off  to  the  left  of 
the  Peel  River  it  seemed  to  hang  there  for  a 
time,  and  then  to  go,  not  in  the  arc  of  a  circle, 
but  almost  in  a  line  parallel  with  the  level 
of  the  earth  plane,  passing  with  considerable 
rapidity  from  left  to  right  in  its  course.  Its 
reflection  upon  the  water  of  the  Peel  River, 
very  noticeable  at  first,  changed  imtil  by  and 
by  there  was  no  reflection  left  at  all  and  it  had 

164 


THE  MIDNIGHT  SUN 

passed  off  across  the  spruce  forest  upon  the 
right  bank  of  the  river.  There  again  it  seemed 
to  hang,  as  in  its  upward  course  it  began  to 
forsake  its  semi-contact  with  the  level  of  the 
earth's  sphere.  For  these  few  days  at  this 
latitude  it  would  make  its  circle  in  what  Rob 
called  the  northwest  comer  of  the  heavens, 
striving  to  give  these  poor  natives  who  live 
in  that  land  some  sort  of  compensation  for 
the  terrible  sunless  nights  of  the  immeasur- 
able Arctic  winter. 

Our  young  adventurers,  be  sure,  had  lost 
no  time  in  this  fine  opportunity  for  photog- 
raphy— an  opportunity  given  to  very  few 
travelers  of  any  age  or  climate  at  this  par- 
ticular spot;  for  since  the  great  Klondike 
rush  had  straggled  through,  broken  and  fail- 
ing, twenty  years  before,  few  white  persons 
indeed  had  ever  stood  upon  these  shores. 

"Run,  Jesse,  to  our  tent  upon  the  beach!" 
called  out  John.  "I'm  out  of  films.  Get  all 
we've  got.  We'll  have  to  try  and  try  again, 
so  as  to  be  sure  we're  not  missing  anything." 

"That's  right,"  said  Rob.  "We  don't 
know  much  about  this  light.  It's  soft  and 
faint,  but  it  seems  to  cut  the  fihn,  after  all, 
as  near  as  I  can  tell.  I'm  going  to  make  all 
sorts  of  times — ^from  three  seconds  and  five 
seconds  and  ten  seconds  up  to  twenty  and 

165 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

thirty  seconds;  and  with  each  of  these  times 
that  I  give  it  I'm  going  to  use  a  different 
stop.  Somewhere ,  some  of  us  will  get  a  picture, 
I'm  sure  of  that." 

"Well,"  said  John,  looking  at  Jesse's  hurry- 
ing form  as  he  scurried  down  the  steep  path 
to  their  tent  upon  the  beach,  "it  would  be 
too  bad  to  come  this  far  and  then  fail." 

It  may  be  added  that  the  boys  did  not  fail, 
for  certainly  they  brought  out  from  their  trip 
what  then  were  known  as  the  best  amateur 
negatives  ever  made  in  that  latitude;  and 
of  all  the  trophies  of  their  northern  trips  they 
have  prized  none  so  much  as  these  pictures 
of  their  own,  of  that  strange  spectacle  of  the 
great,  mysterious  North. 

It  was  late  that  night,  or  early  that  morn- 
ing, when  at  length  they  closed  their  labors 
with  the  cameras,  all  fairly  content.  Uncle 
Dick  had  left  them  to  their  own  devices,  feel- 
ing that  if  they  got  results — as  he  felt  sure 
they  would — they  would  feel  all  the  more 
proud  for  having  done  so  without  the  advice 
and  aid  of  one  older  than  themselves.  In- 
deed, he  was  beginning  more  and  more  to 
trust  these  yoimg  lads  to  their  own  devices. 
Himself  occupied  with  matters  of  business 
which  kept  him  very  largely  about  the  gov- 
ernment office  —  as  might  have  been  called 

1 66 


THE  MIDNIGHT  SUN 

the  log  barracks  of  the  Northwest  Mounted 
PoHce  which  made  the  only  representative 
of  the  law  in  that  far-off  land — ^he  for  some 
time  after  the  landing  of  the  boat  allowed  the 
boys  to  shift  pretty  much  for  themselves, 
with  what  results  we  have  seen. 

They  had  pitched  their  tent  farther  down 
the  beach  than  the  lowest  Eskimo  hut,  and 
had  in  this  case  put  up  the  great  mosquito 
tent,  which  stood  eight  feet  high  and  had 
windows  like  a  house.  Into  this,  late  that 
night,  they  now  crawled,  one  after  another, 
tlrrough  the  sleeve  of  the  tent. 

"My!"  exclaimed  Jesse,  "I  never  saw  such 
mosquitoes  in  my  life  as  these  little  black 
fellows!  There  are  simply  clouds  of  them  all 
along  the  beach  here,  and  they  follow  you 
wherever  you  go." 

They  all  stood  up  inside  the  tent  before  pre- 
paring for  bed  in  their  blanket  rolls. 

''Take  your  socks,  fellows,"  said  Rob. 
"We'll  have  to  kill  every  one  in  the  tent,  or 
they  won't  let  us  sleep  to-night.  Jesse's 
right;  these  little  fellows  bite  worse  than  any- 
thing I've  seen  yet.  I  vow,  when  I  came  into 
the  tent  they  almost  scared  me  when  they 
lit  on  my  head  and  neck!" 

"That  trader  and  his  wife  didn't  seem  to 
mind  them  so  much,"  said  John,  scratching 
12  167 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

his  own  neck  rather  seriously.  "She's  a  white 
woman,  too — Norwegian,  I  think  some  one 
told  me — at  least  she  speaks  somewhat  brok- 
en. She's  a  nice  woman,  too,  and  I  don't 
see  how  she  stands  it  up  in  this  country." 

"Her  husband  told  me  this  is  their  third 
winter  in  the  North,"  answered  Rob.  "They 
say  it  takes  two  or  three  years  to  get  used  to 
these  things,  and  then  you  sort  of  quiet  down 
and  get  resigned." 

"Or  else  you  die!"  grumbled  John.  "We 
don't  know  how  many  people  there  are  that 
don't  get  resigned." 

"How  long  is  the  boat  going  to  be  here  yet, 
Rob?"  queried  Jesse,  sitting  up  on  his  bed 
and  tinlacing  his  moccasins. 

"Until  the  jamboree  is  ended  and  all  the 
fur  is  bought  from  the  Huskies,"  replied  Rob, 
seriously.  "Maybe  two  or  three  days  yet — 
I  don't  know.  There'll  be  plenty  of  time  for 
us  to  look  around  a  bit  to-morrow,  and  even 
later.  Meantime,  Uncle  Dick  has  got  to  get 
the  supplies  ready  for  our  canoe.  We're  a 
long  ways  from  home  yet.  We're  not  going 
back  when  the  steamer  goes,  yoimg  chaps; 
you'd  better  remember  that!" 

' '  Huh !  Who  cares  ? ' '  said  Jesse,  contemptu- 
ously, pulling  his  blanket  over  his  head.  "I'm 
not  afraid.     We'll  get  through  somehow." 

i68 


THE  MIDNIGHT  SUN 

As  Rob  had  said,  they  had  ample  time  the 
next  day  to  look  about  them  in  this  strange  and 
interesting  environment  into  which  they  had 
now  come.  The  unloading  of  the  boat  went 
on  steadily,  the  slow  stream  of  breeds,  stoop- 
ing imder  their  heavy  loads,  passing  up  the 
steep  bluff  from  the  boat  landing  to  the 
trading-post.  The  boys  had  time  to  prowl 
along  the  beach  and  watch  the  natives  run 
their  nets,  and  even  pursue  their  native  art 
of  hunting;  for  that  morning,  hearing  shots 
from  the  bank,  they  looked  out  to  see  a  half- 
dozen  native  kayaks  hurrying  to  a  point  out 
in  the  river  where  a  black  object  bobbing  up 
was  seen  now  and  then.  It  was,  in  fact,  a 
beaver  which  had  been  spied.  On  the  bank 
a  half-breed  was  shooting  at  it  with  a  rifle, 
while  the  Huskies  were  crowding  aroimd,  en- 
deavoring to  spear  it  when  it  came  to  sight. 
At  last  a  lucky  shot  from  the  rifleman  brought 
an  end  to  the  chase.  A  Husky  drove  a  spear 
into  the  body  of  the  dead  beaver,  and  they 
came  ashore  with  it,  all  of  them  shouting 
and  singing  and  flinging  up  their  paddles  or 
their  spear-shafts  as  they  raced  ahead. 

"Look  at  those  boats,"  said  Rob,  always 
observant.  "In  the  last  five  hundred  miles 
we  have  seen  the  birch-bark  canoe  change 
into  a  kayak,  haven't  we?" 

169 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

"That's  right,"  said  John.  "First  there 
was  the  Cree  canoe,  with  the  high  bow  and 
stem  rolling  in — much  as  you  could  see  in 
Canada  anywhere.  Then,  as  the  trees  got 
smaller,  birch  bark  scarcer,  in  the  Dog  Rib 
and  Rabbit  country,  the  boats  got  narrower. 
I  wouldn't  have  liked  to  get  into  one.  But 
they  didn't  waste  any  bark  rolling  the  ends 
in;  the  ends  came  up  sharp,  as  in  the  kayak." 

"Yes,  and  at  Arctic  Red  River,"  said  Jesse, 
remembering,  "they  had  just  a  little  deck — 
not  much  of  a  one.  And  now  here  they  are 
made  out  of  skin  and  decked  all  over  except 
a  little  hole  in  the  middle." 

"And  if  you'll  look  at  these  Eskimos,"  said 
Rob,  again,  "and  then  think  of  how  those 
Chippewyans  looked,  you'll  have  to  admit  that 
they  both  have  the  same  look  and  that  they 
both  look  Japanese.  I  saw  Chippewyans  that 
looked  like  Japs  to  me,  and  that  was  'way 
south  of  here.  I  suppose  maybe  some  writers 
are  correct,  and  that  a  good  many  of  the  tribes, 
if  not  all  of  them,  came  across  the  Bering 
Sea  once  upon  a  time,  long  ago." 

"Uncle  Dick  is  going  to  get  a  couple  of 
Indian  boys  here,  Loucheux,  to  help  us  up 
to  the  divide,"  said  John.  "He  told  me  that 
to-day.  He's  out  of  patience  with  the  delay 
here  and  crazy  to  get  started,  but  he  couldn't 

170 


THE  MIDNIGHT  SUN 

get  any  supplies.  The  Hudson's  Bay  say  that 
they  lost  a  scow  somewhere  which  ought  to 
have  come  in  here  and  didn't  come.  The 
Northwest  Moimted  Police  claim  that  all 
their  bacon  is  missing.  The  Indians  say 
they  are  starving  and  have  to  have  something 
for  their  children.  How  we'll  get  beans  enough 
to  carry  us  across  Uncle  Dick  can't  say." 

"Well,  leave  it  to  Uncle  Dick,"  said  Jesse. 
"I  know  he'll  fix  it  all  right  some  way,  and 
we'll  get  through,  too." 

"That's  the  talk,  Jesse,"  said  Rob,  slap- 
ping a  hand  on  his  shoulder.  "You've  got 
more  nerve  than  you  had  when  you  started, 
and  you  weigh  ten  pounds  more,  too.  I'll 
warrant  that  you'll  be  the  lead  dog  on  the 
tow-line  going  up  the  Rat." 

Thus  occupied,  they  passed  the  time  all 
too  rapidly.  In  the  late  evening  of  their 
second  day  the  boys  noticed  a  strange  hurry- 
ing among  all  the  population  at  the  crest  of 
the  bluff  and  on  the  beach  below.  Some  sort 
of  warning  seemed  to  be  in  the  air ;  an  instant 
later  it  became  audible  in  the  deep,  booming 
whistle  of  the  steamboat  which  lay  moored 
below. 

The  Mackenzie  River,  last  unit  of  the  modem 

fur  brigade,  was  ready  to  turn  back  from  her 

farthest  north  and  take  up  her  weary  way 

171 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

once  more,  bucking  the  tremendous  current 
of  the  Mackenzie  River  for  more  than  a 
thousand  miles  to  the  southward. 

Again  and  again  the  whistle's  echoes  rang 
along  the  steep  shore,  and  here  and  there 
whites  and  natives,  all  the  tribesmen,  every 
unit  of  the  motley  population  of  the  place, 
hurried  down  to  the  landing,  until  the  narrow 
beach  was  packed.  Men  shouted  and  waved 
to  others  now  gone  aboard  the  boat.  The 
two  red-clad  police  officers  now  going  back 
home  smiled  their  pleasure  at  the  thought  of 
the  long  journey  that  lay  ahead  of  them; 
whereas  the  two  who  took  their  place  stood 
looking  upon  them  somewhat  ruefully,  but 
bravely  as  they  might,  facing  their  own  two 
years  of  exile,  dtuing  which  they  wotild  never 
again  see  a  white  face  imtil  they  themselves 
were  relieved.  A  few  Huskies  now  came  hiu:- 
riedly,  offering  bargains  in  their  coveted 
white-fox  skins,  and  some  of  the  great  Arctic 
mink  which  had  not  yet  all  been  traded  even 
by  the  shrewd  district  agent  who  had  come 
north  with  the  steamer  to  see  after  this  par- 
ticular portion  of  the  territory  of  his  Company, 
always  so  prolific  in  good  furs. 

Men  joked  and  chaffed  each  other  here  and 
there  across  the  narrow  strip  of  water.  Dogs 
howled  each  time  the  whistle  blast  rang  out. 

172 


;■>::  "r 


THE  MIDNIGHT  SUN 

A  few  enthusiasts  on  the  top  of  the  bank 
wasted  precious  ammunition  in  a  salute.  A 
few  cronies  drank  a  parting  stirrup  cup  out 
of  their  scant  remaining  alcoholic  stores. 
Yonder  the  Eskimos  now  began  to  man  their 
whale-boats  for  their  long  voyage  to  the 
Arctic  Sea.  The  women  were  packing  up 
their  own  supplies  now,  herding  the  dogs  to- 
gether, pulling  the  kayaks  up  on  the  decks  of 
the  sailing-schooners.  The  great  event  of  the 
year  was  coming  to  its  close  and  camp  was 
breaking.  Now  the  head  of  the  brigade,  this 
unit  farthest  north,  must  begin  its  long  and 
laborious  passage  southward  once  more  against 
the  current.  As  it  had  brought  north  such 
store  as  was  possible  of  bulky  goods,  now 
it  carried  back,  tight  packed  in  its  hold,  the 
bales  of  the  precious  fur,  so  much  less  bulky 
than  the  goods  which  had  been  brought  north, 
and  so  far  more  valuable. 

The  old  trader,  gray,  grizzled,  and  taci- 
turn, who  had  done  his  Company  the  ser- 
vice of  acctunulating  all  this  store  of  fur, 
stood  leaning  against  the  beam  of  the  great 
fur-press  which  but  now  had  been  busy  in 
baling  the  precious  white-fox  fur,  the  mink 
and  marten,  of  this  great  and  soHtary  country 
of  the  North.  He  would  not  again  see  a 
civilized  face  tmtil  that  time  in  the  following 

173 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

year,  if  he  still  were  living  then.  He  made  no 
comment,  nor  did  the  swarthy  men  of  his 
immediate  command  who  stood  about  him, 
grim  and  taciturn,  and  disdaining  to  show 
the  emotion  of  a  salute  to  the  passing  crew 
of  the  Mackenzie  River. 

But  at  last  the  conclusion  of  all  these  part- 
ings came.  All  the  government  men  and 
Company  men  who  were  going  out  went  on 
board  ship.  The  bell  jingled  under  the  hand 
of  the  captain  in  his  pilot-house  above.  The 
strong-armed  breeds  hauled  in  the  gang- 
plank, and  with  a  parting  shrill  salute  the 
steamer  began  to  swing  her  nose  into  the 
current  of  the  Peel. 

Majestically  she  turned  about  to  pick  up 
the  current  for  her  brief  run  down  that  stream 
to  the  great  river  which  she  was  now  to  ascend. 
The  boys  on  the  bank  plied  their  cameras  as 
she  swung  midstream,  and  worked  them  yet 
further  as  the  Eskimo  whale-boats  fell  in  her 
wake. 

By  and  by  the  last  cheering  ceased  to  be 
heard.  A  blank  silence  fell  upon  all  those  re- 
maining on  the  bank.  The  three  yoimg  lads 
looked  from  one  to  the  other,  looked  again 
at  the  silent  face  of  the  tall  and  sim-bronzed 
man  who  was  to  lead  them  out  of  this  coimtry 
now.    A  sudden  melancholy  had  fallen  upon 

174 


THE  MIDNIGHT  SUN 

them  all.  The  silence,  the  mystery  of  the 
great  North,  seemed  now  to  envelop  them. 
They  felt  strangely  alone — indeed,  if  truth 
were  told,  strangely  sad  and  helpless.  Home 
— how  very  far  away  it  seemed!  John  poked 
a  swift  elbow  into  Jesse's  side,  for  it  seemed  to 
him  he  had  caught  just  a  suspicion  of  a  tear 
in  the  comer  of  that  yoimg  traveler's  eye. 

And  now,  late  in  what  should  have  been  the 
evening  of  the  Arctic  day,  there  arose,  as  if 
expressive  of  the  thought  in  the  minds  of  all, 
that  strangest  and  most  mournful  sound  that 
comes  to  the  ears  of  man — the  imited  howling 
of  the  dogs  of  the  Far  North. 

There  may  have  been  two  or  three  hundred 
of  them  in  all,  perhaps  more,  in  the  Loucheux 
village  and  the  remainder  of  the  Eskimo  en- 
campment, but  all  of  them  in  unison,  if  not 
in  accord,  raised  their  voices  in  a  tremulous 
wail  which  fairly  made  the  blood  run  cold. 

It  was  the  voice  of  the  far-off,  mysterious, 
and  unconquered  North! 


XII 

THE   RAT   PORTAGE 

BEFORE  our  young  adventurers  now  lay 
the  most  dangerous  part  of  their  entire 
journey  in  the  northern  wilderness — that  fa- 
mous Rat  Portage  over  the  Rockies,  at  which, 
twenty  years  earlier,  so  many  parties  bound 
for  the  Klondike  met  disaster.  Our  young 
friends  had  no  guides  to  lead  them  through 
this  unknown  coimtry,  any  more  than  had 
the  first  Klondikers  in  the  gold  stampede 
which  came  down  the  Mackenzie  and  imder- 
took  to  get  across  to  the  Yukon.  No  map 
of  that  region  existed,  or  at  least  not  in  the 
knowledge  of  any  of  our  party.  They  were, 
therefore,  as  helpless  as  any  explorers  ever 
were  in  any  portion  of  the  world,  and  were 
about  to  venture  into  a  coimtry  as  wild  as 
any  upon  the  North  American  continent. 

It  was  no  wonder,  then,  that  their  leader, 
himself  a  wise  and  cautious  man  and  well 
versed  in  all  the  expedients  of  outdoor  life, 

176 


THE  RAT  PORTAGE 

hesitated  and  pondered,  as,  standing  upon 
the  high  crest  of  Fort  McPherson  boat  land- 
ing, he  looked  out  to  the  low,  dull  slopes  of  the 
Rockies,  far  ahead.  He  had  heard  all  the 
stories  about  this  risky  undertaking,  and  had 
been  cautioned  repeatedly  by  the  old  trader 
at  Fort  McPherson  against  endeavoring  to 
get  through  with  no  companions  but  these 
young  boys.  He  knew  that  his  supplies 
would  be  no  more  than  sufficient,  and  that  there 
was  no  place  to  get  further  supplies.  Above 
all,  he  pondered  over  the  dissimilarity  of 
opinions  expressed  about  the  distances  and 
difficulties  of  the  proposed  route  across  the 
Rockies,  Some  said  it  was  a  himdred  miles 
to  the  simimit,  others  said  seventy-five,  others 
a  hundred  and  forty.  Some  said  it  would 
take  a  week  to  get  to  the  top,  others  two 
weeks,  others  three,  and  yet  others  said  it 
cotild  not  be  done  at  all.  Some  said  there 
was  one  lake  at  the  portage  on  the  sirnimit, 
others  said  there  were  five.  No  one  could 
give  any  clear  idea  of  the  coimtry  that  lay 
out  yonder  beyond  the  dull,  brown  ttmdra. 

It  was  a  mysterious  land,  potent  with  diffi- 
culties and  possibly  alive  with  dangers.  Uncle 
Dick  loved  these  yoimg  companions  of  his 
beyond  all  price,  and  he  knew  his  own  re- 
sponsibility   in    undertaking    to    lead    them 

177 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

through.  At  times  he  regretted  the  whole 
journey  as  a  mad  enterprise  which  never 
ought  to  have  been  taken  on.  But  at  length, 
like  any  bom  leader,  he  pitted  the  difficulties 
against  the  privileges,  made  his  decision;  and, 
having  made  it,  adhered  to  it. 

"We'll  start,  boys,"  said  he,  "and  start 
to-morrow." 

Since,  therefore,  these  young  travelers  did 
make  this  dangerous  journey  which  had  proved 
impossible  for  so  many  older  voyageurs,  it  may 
be  well  to  allow  Rob  to  tell  in  his  own  fashion 
the  story  of  their  crossing  of  the  Rockies  on 
the  old  Rat  Portage.  Rob  kept  his  notes  from 
day  to  day  during  the  remainder  of  their 
stay  at  Fort  McPherson. 

"  Sunday,  July  i^th. — Cloudy  and  over- 
cast. Lucky  we  got  our  pictures  of  the 
Midnight  Sun — this  is  about  the  last 
chance.  We  have  been  living  at  the 
Mounted  Police  barracks.  The  old  trader 
keeps  to  his  own  house.  Uncle  Dick 
says  he  was  to  get  us  our  supplies.  We 
have  mended  the  canoe  we  brought 
down  on  the  steamboat.  Not  very  big 
for  four  of  us.  Uncle  Dick  says  he  has  got 
two  Loucheux  Indian  boys,  Johnny  and 

Willy,  to  meet  us  at  the  mouth  of  the 
178 


THE  RAT  PORTAGE 

Rat  River  and  help  us  to  track  up  that 
river  to  the  top.  Uncle  Dick  seems  un- 
easy. We  told  him  not  to  bother  about 
us.  The  independent  trader  with  a  scow 
of  furs  is  going  to  try  to  get  across.  We 
ought  to  beat  them  over. 

''Wednesday,  July  i6th.  —  Such  fuss 
and  fooling  aroimd  nobody  ever  saw.  But 
we're  on  our  way  w4th  at  least  some  sup- 
plies. Glad  we  brought  a  shot-gim  and 
a  fishing-rod.  Off  at  4.15.  At  7.30 
reached  a  creek  coming  into  the  Husky 
River  from  a  chain  of  lakes.  Never  saw 
so  many  fish  in  my  life  as  there  were  of 
the  '  Connies.'  We  caught  plenty  for  a 
day  or  so.  Mosquitoes  bad  in  camp. 
Rain. 

"Friday,  July  i8th. — Late  start,  10.30. 
At  1.30  made  the  mouth  of  the  Rat  and 
picked  up  the  two  Indians.  This  famous 
stream  is  a  deep,  narrow  creek.  Mosqui- 
toes the  worst  I  ever  saw.  Ate  lunch  in 
headnets.  Have  to  write  with  gloves  on. 
Current  sluggish.  We  still  can  paddle  up- 
stream. It  is  at  least  seventy-five  miles, 
possibly  a  hundred,  to  the  top. 

"At  1 1. 1 5  thought  we  were  near  De- 
struction City,  the  old   Klondike  camp 
where  so  many  died.    Some  women  win- 
179 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

tered  here.  Must  have  been  an  awful 
bunch  of  tenderfeet.  We  are  maybe  ten 
to  fifteen  miles  above  the  mouth  of  the 
Rat.  Shores  sandy  and  covered  with 
willows.  Cooked  a  pot  of  beans.  We 
have  a  few  beans,  a  little  tea,  some  dried 
fruit,  a  little  flour,  and  some  side-meat 
for  grease.  Not  much  more.  Fish  are 
said  to  be  plenty,  also  plenty  of  ptar- 
migan and  rabbits  farther  up.  Pretty 
tired  to-night.  Have  done  maybe  twenty 
miles. 

''Saturday J  July  igth. — Current  stiffen 
Passed  a  creek  coming  from  Black  Moim- 
tains.  Shores  began  to  change  in  the 
afternoon.  Tundra  coming  down  to 
banks.  Began  to  see  rocks  on  shore — 
glad  to  see  them  after  so  much  mud  and 
willow  flats.  At  4  p.m.  made  Destruction 
City — probably  twenty-five  miles  above 
the  mouth  of  the  Rat.  Going  slower 
than  we  thought,  as  we  hoped  to  make 
this  yesterday.  Caught  some  big  trout, 
very  fine  to  eat.  They  take  the  fly 
splendidly.  At  5  P.M.  we  laid  aside  the 
paddles  and  had  to  begin  to  track.  The 
Indians  are  patient  now,  and  very  use- 
ful.   Tracking  is  beastly  hard  work.    You 

put  a  collar  aroimd  your  breast  and  shoul- 
180 


THE   RAT  PORTAGE 

der.  We  had  to  walk  in  the  water.  Uncle 
Dick  and  the  Indians  and  I  took  turns. 
John  steered  pretty  well.  All  got  our 
feet  and  legs  wet  a  hundred  times.  Jesse 
went  along  shore  most  of  the  way.  The 
canoe  rode  light,  and  we  made  pretty 
good  time. 

"Stmday,  July  20th. — Mosquitoes  still 
with  us.  Rain  lets  up.  We  have  been 
sleeping  pretty  wet,  but  don't  mind. 
Rerigged  otir  tracking-line.  Got  some 
pictures.  Started  at  10.30  and  traveled 
nearly  five  hours  to  foot  of  a  bad  rapid 
above  a  deep  pool.  Camped  on  a  beach. 
Made  a  big  fire  to  dry  our  clothes.  We 
are  wet  all  the  time,  all  of  us.  Jesse 
shot  three  rabbits.  He  htints  while  we 
track  the  boats.  We  don't  let  him  get 
out  of  sight  very  far.  I  saw  one  lynx  to- 
day. Astonishing  how  little  game  we 
have  been  seeing  on  this  whole  trip  in  this 
big  wild  coimtry.  Saw  an  abandoned 
Klondike  camp.  They  say  they  are  scat- 
tered through  all  these  woods  here.  Some- 
times they  have  foimd  skeletons  since. 
A  boy  was  lost  in  here  and  found  dead. 
Traces  of  the  big  Ellondike  migration 
now  getting  scarce.  Saw  some  iron  on 
the  beach,  and  ax  marks  on  trees. 
181 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

*^  Monday,  July  2isL  —  Heavy  going. 
Hard  strain  on  all  of  us.  Think  this 
woiild  try  the  best  sort  of  man  if  he  had 
heavy  supplies  along  in  his  boat.  We 
have  to  hurry  or  we  won't  have  enough 
to  eat.  Lunch  at  2  p.m.  Saw  the  moim- 
tains  far  ahead.  A  great  sight.  They 
seem  not  more  than  twenty-five  miles. 
Indian  boys  very  useful,  quiet,  and  pa- 
tient. One  says  he  paid  twenty-five  dol- 
lars for  his  hat  at  the  trading-post.  It 
was  worth  about  two  dollars  in  the  States. 
Saw  some  blazed  trees.  This  was  written 
on  one,  'Colin's  rifle  in  tent  here  25th.* 
Don't  know  what  this  meant,  but  suppose 
a  party  had  split  and  some  gone  ahead, 
and  left  word.  Gimi  had  grown  all  over 
the  writing.  Saw  some  more  sled  irons. 
Jesse  got  eight  rabbits  and  two  ptar- 
migan. We  make  a  stew  and  keep  put- 
ting more  things  in  it  as  we  travel  along. 
*  Tuesday,  July  22d. — ^We  started  about 
10  o'clock  this  morning.  Take  tiuns  on 
the  line,  each  going  as  fast  and  as  far  as 
he  can,  imtil  he  gets  pretty  tired.  Saw 
a  coal  seam  in  a  cut  rock  wall  on  the  bank. 
Moimted  a  series  of  heavy  rapids  all  day. 
At  7  P.M.  hit  a  canon  and  had  hard  work 
to  get  up  the  rapids,  for  almost  a  mile. 
182 


THE   RAT  PORTAGE 

All  worn  out.  Camp  8.30.  Jesse  plumb 
fagged  out.  Everybody  wet.  We  dried 
our  clothes  around  the  fire  before  we  went 
to  bed.  Can  see  how  hard  this  would 
be  for  real  tenderfeet.  Foimd  an  old 
Klondike  shack,  fallen  in,  this  after- 
noon, apparently  deserted  nearly  twenty 
years.  Caught  some  splendid  Arctic 
trout  on  the  fly — the  gamest  fish  we  ever 
saw,  and  mighty  good  to  eat.  They  look 
like  sea-trout,  although  they  are  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  miles  from  the  sea  here. 
Our  camp  in  a  round  pocket  to-night. 
The  caiion  bends  sharp  to  the  right. 
Can  see  one  mountain  ahead,  but  not  the 
big  range.  John  making  a  map  all  the 
time.  Stories  told  us  no  use  this  far; 
things  don't  check  out. 

*'Wed?iesday,  July  2jd. — Off  at  10.30. 
Much  to  our  joy,  have  fine  tracking 
nearly  all  day.  Rapids  less  powerful, 
and  bends  wider,  and  better  beaches 
to  walk  on.  At  6.30  passed  a  small  creek 
and  explored  it.  Nowhere  near  summit 
yet.  We  thought  we  logged  twelve  miles 
to-day.  Probably  haven't  averaged  half 
that  the  other  three  days.  It  looks 
mighty  puzzling  on  ahead.  They  told  us 
to  look  out  for  a  sharp,  high  peak  which 
13  183 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

marked  the  portage.  We  can't  figure  it 
out.  They  told  us  to  look  for  a  river 
coming  from  the  right.  We  don't  find  one. 
We  seem  a  long  way  from  the  summit. 
Camp  9.30  on  rocky  flat.  Trout  and  gray- 
ling both  for  supper.     Very  fine. 

''Thursday,  July  24th. — Haven't  slept 
very  well.  Everybody  getting  sore  and 
tired.  Don't  think  we  went  over  four  or 
five  miles  all  day  to-day.  Uncle  Dick 
called  it  'unmitigated  hell.*  Water  icy 
cold  now  and  very  fast  and  heavy.  A 
great  many  round,  smooth  stones  in  the 
river,  so  we  can  hardly  walk.  Our  shoes  are 
worn  out,  and  we  are  only  wearing  double 
moccasins,  so  that  our  feet  can  hardly 
stand  it.  Uncle  Dick  fell  down  once  and 
hurt  his  leg  pretty  bad.  An  accident 
might  happen  any  time.  The  Indian  boys 
are  tired  but  game.  When  we  asked 
them  how  far  to  the  top  they  said,  *I 
dinno,'  which  is  about  all  the  English 
they  have.  Current  getting  worse  and 
worse,  and  the  bad  part  is  that  the  water 
is  so  shallow  that  in  places  it  is  hard  to 
get  even  our  light  canoe  through.  We 
have  to  make  crossings,  and  then  there 
is  risk  of  the  boat  swinging  down  and 
pulling  us  off  our  feet.  I  suppose  a  fellow 
184 


THE   RAT  PORTAGE 

would  drown  with  the  track-line  around 
him.  Mighty  hard  work.  At  nine  o'clock 
the  two  Indian  boys  all  in,  and  had  to 
stop.  At  ten  I  went  up  with  Uncle  Dick 
to  explore.  A  river  came  from  the  right, 
so  we  thought  this  was  the  junction  of 
which  they  told  us  at  McPherson.  Went 
back  and  got  the  rest  and  camped  here 
about  midnight.  Tundra  imder  the  trees. 
Coiildn't  drive  tent-pegs  for  ice.  A  bad 
camp.    Everybody  tired. 

"Here  we  found  the  Summit  Tree,  not 
far  from  the  beach.  It  says:  'Summit 
Tree.  Please  register.'  Many  names 
under  date  of  1898.  Couldn't  read  all  of 
them.  A  grizzly  had  registered  on  this 
tree,  too — scraped  the  bark  off  high  up. 
Some  names  we  saw  were  Watt,  Gold- 
heim,  Marks,  Jones,  etc.  As  is  the  cus- 
tom, we  cut  our  names  in,  too,  with  the 
date,  so  that  others  might  see  them.  We 
slashed  down  the  brush  to  the  water  so 
that  any  others  coming  in  now  might  see 
this  tree  easier  and  so  know  where  they 
were.  If  we  had  not  foimd  this  tree  we 
would  not  have  been  sure  we  had  reached 
the  summit.  Well,  we  are  mighty  glad, 
anyhow.  Wet  and  tired,  but  pretty  con- 
fident. Not  much  grub.  Some  rapids  1 
185 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

'^Friday,  July  2$th. — So  tired  we  slept 
late.  Everybody  stiff.  Took  the  left- 
hand  creek  that  comes  in  here,  and  had 
a  hard  ptill  over  a  little  cataract.  This 
should  be  called  Summit  Creek.  It  doesn't 
seem  to  have  any  name.  It  runs  narrow, 
and  fringed  with  alders.  Very  crooked. 
Saw  some  jack-snipe  and  a  robin  to-day, 
up  here  on  the  summit  of  the  Rockies, 
almost  at  the  Arctic  Sea  and  above  the 
Arctic  Circle! 

"  We  had  to  drop  the  line  in  the  brush 
here  and  use  paddle  and  pole.  Went 
for  an  hour  and  a  half  and  then  could  see 
lake  on  the  right.  Small  creek  coming  in. 
Another  lake  ahead.  Everything  was 
blank.  It  looked  like  a  big  country  and 
we  had  no  map.  John  set  down  every- 
thing as  we  found  it  out  for  ourselves. 
We  climbed  the  foot-hills  to  look  about. 
Of  course  we  wanted  to  find  the  head- 
waters of  the  Bell  River,  or  rather  the 
Little  Bell,  which  runs  into  the  Big  Bell, 
and  then  into  the  Porcupine,  which  runs 
into  the  Yukon,  but  we  did  not  know 
which  gap  held  the  headwaters  of  the 
Bell.  On  the  left  we  saw  a  chain  of  little 
lakes,  four  or  five  of  them.  Supposed 
there  might  be  channels,  so  bore  to  left 
i86 


THE   RAT  PORTAGE 

toward  these  lakes.  We're  now  on  a  flat 
country  high  up,  with  rock  walls  far 
away  on  either  side  and  mountains  on 
ahead.  We  are  on  the  tundra  now. 
It  is  broken  up  into  humps.  The  French 
call  them  'tetes  des  femmes,''  or  'woman 
heads,'  because  of  the  long  grass  that 
hangs  down  from  the  top.  Mighty  hard 
to  walk  over.  There  is  a  land  portage 
from  Fort  McPherson  to  the  summit. 
A  Catholic  priest  has  made  it,  and  he 
used  snow-shoes  on  these  'woman  heads,' 
although  there  was  no  snow.  A  man 
could  hardly  walk  in  any  other  way. 

"We  left  two  lakes  to  the  right,  fol- 
lowed the  creek,  and  came  to  an  old 
landing.  Camped  at  6  p.m.  to  eat.  In- 
stead of  two  lakes  up  here  there  are  five! 
We  don't  know  where  we  are  going,  but 
are  hanging  to  our  creek.  Signs  of  a 
portage  other  side  of  the  lake,  so  guess 
we  are  on  the  right  trail.  This  is  a  blind 
pass.  Some  danger,  I  suppose.  We  are 
not  scared.  We  all  hang  together,  be- 
cause any  one  left  here  would  be  helpless. 

^^  Saturday,  July  26th.  —  Flies  not  so 
bad.  Tried  out  our  creek  farther  and 
came  into  third  small  lake.  Cut  a  port- 
age into  next  lake.  The  creek  is  very 
187 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

blind — wanders  aroirnd  through  the  wil- 
lows and  grass.  Jesse  and  John  got  away 
for  an  hotir  or  two  to-day,  and  were 
lost;  they  went  to  the  right  where  we 
thought  the  channel  ran,  but  it  didn't 
go  there.  Everybody  much  scared.  The 
last  portage  is  on  ahead,  six  hundred 
yards  from  Simimit  Lake  to  Loon  Lake. 
Everybody  seems  to  forget  these  other 
little  lakes,  which  are  confusing.  We  see 
signs  of  old  ax-work,  so  think  we  must  be 
on  the  trail.  The  Hudson's  Bay  people 
have  used  this  in  the  past  as  well  as  the 
Klondike  outfits.  These  latter  people 
must  have  had  an  awful  time  getting  over. 

"The  whole  country  of  the  Rat  and  the 
coimtry  on  the  summit  in  this  pass  may 
be  called  altogether  new  and  unknown  to 
any  one.  We  had  to  find  it  as  much  as 
if  no  one  had  ever  been  there  before, 
except  one  or  two  places  we  saw  where 
men  had  been.  There  is  no  map  of  it. 
Now  we  have  made  two  short  portages 
and  one  long  portage  in  getting  to  Loon 
Lake ;  and  Loon  Lake,  we  are  pretty  sure, 
drains  into  the  headwaters  of  the  Bell 
River. 

"This  creek  is  so  shallow  we  have  to 
drag  oiir  boat  across  the  timdra.    Willy 


THE  RAT  PORTAGE 

had  gone  on  ahead,  and  says  he  has  found 
the  Bell  River.  It  is  not  anywhere  near 
where  we  thought  it  was.  I  thought  the 
pass  lay  far  off  to  the  right.  Opposite 
our  camp  on  Loon  Lake  there  is  a  '  sharp, 
high  peak,'  all  right,  and  this  no  doubt  is 
the  one  the  traders  told  us  about.  The 
trouble  is  when  you  say '  sharp,  high  peak  * 
you  may  see  any  one  of  fifty  which  you 
think  is  the  right  one,  and  it  may  be 
wrong. 

"Found  the  new  creek,  which  we  think 
is  the  Little  Bell,  down  a  deep  bank. 
Plenty  of  water  and  plenty  of  current. 
It  looks  as  if  it  ran  back  into  the  moun- 
tains fifteen  or  twenty  miles.  No  one 
knows  an3rthing  about  it.  No  one  knows 
anything  about  this  coimtry  at  all.  We 
call  ourselves  explorers  as  much  as  any- 
body. I  am  pretty  sure  now  that  this  is 
the  right '  sharp,  high  peak.'  There  was  a 
trader  by  name  of  Charles  Camsell  came 
across  here,  and  he  made  a  sort  of  map. 
The  government  maps  only  guess  at  this 
as  far  as  they  try  to  describe  it. 

"I  think  it  is  risky  to  depend  on  loose 
talk  of  a  new  country  like  this.  They  told 
us  there  were  only  two  portages  and  two 
lakes,  but  I  have  counted  eleven  lakes  and 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

ponds  on  the  siimmit  of  the  Rockies  here. 
We  really  crossed  five  lakes,  counting  in 
Loon  Lake,  and  we  made  two  short  creek 
portages,  one  long  lake-to-lake  portage, 
and  one  long  lake-to-river  portage — the 
five-himdred-yards  drag  into  the  Little 
Bell.  I  think  this  is  accurate.  John  has 
it  all  down  on  his  map  this  way.  Many 
ptarmigan.  Plenty  of  rabbits.  The  Bell 
River  full  of  grayling.   Never  saw  the  like. 

"  Our  Indian  boys  left  us  to-day.  They 
are  going  back  home  by  themselves. 
They  have  a  rifle  and  we  have  given  them 
a  few  beans  and  a  little  flotir  and  a  small 
piece  of  bacon — all  we  can  spare.  Uncle 
Dick  paid  them  well.  They  have  helped 
out  very  much.  Without  them  I  don't 
know  whether  we  boys  covild  have  got  the 
boat  up  the  Rat  or  not.  It  was  mighty 
rough,  mean  work,  I  can  say  that.  John 
and  Jesse  helped  all  they  could,  and  so  did 
we  all.    Well,  here  we  are  at  the  summit. 

"The  Midnight  Sun  is  gone  now — 
there  was  a  sunset  to-night.  We  got  to 
bed  about  12  o'clock  midnight.  Sorry 
to  have  the  Indian  boys  go  back,  as  they 
were  cheerfiil,  fine  chaps.  They  say  we 
are  all  right  now,  and  that  this  river  runs 
to  the  Porcupine.  I  would  rather  trust 
xgo 


THE   RAT  PORTAGE 

an  Indian  than  a  Klondiker  in  getting 
across  country. 

"We  are  getting  so  we  don't  like  rabbits 
very  much.  The  ptarmigan  and  grayling 
still  taste  good.  Our  new  river  is  full  of 
grayling,  and  we  have  explored  it  a  little 
bit.  It  is  fine  up  here  in  the  mountains. 
John  and  Jesse  and  I  feel  that  this  is  the 
greatest  trip  we  ever  had,  or  that  any- 
body could  have  in  this  country.  We 
feel  more  alone  here  than  in  any  place  we 
have  ever  been  in  all  our  lives. 

"We  now  think  we  can  get  through." 

Rob's  journal  and  John's  map  later  proved 
most  prized  possessions  of  our  young  explor- 
ers, so  they  were  glad  they  kept  them  up, 
although  it  ever  was  rather  imwelcome  work 
to  sit  in  a  cramped-up  tent,  or  out  in  the  air 
among  the  mosquitoes,  and  write  or  draw 
for  a  long  time  while  still  tired  and  wet. 
Both  of  them,  however,  persisted  till  the  end, 
and  later  did  not  regret  it. 


XIII 

DOWN  THE   PORCUPINE 

"I'M  awfully  tired,  Uncle  Dick,"  said  Jesse 
1  when  he  sleepily  rolled  out  of  his  blankets 
on  the  following  morning.  *'It  was  midnight 
when  we  went  to  bed,  and  I  don't  feel  as 
though  I  had  slept  at  all.    Besides,  it's  Sunday." 

"Yes,"  said  his  tmcle,  "it's  Simday,  July 
twenty-seventh,  according  to  my  notes,  and 
we've  been  gone  from  Fort  McPherson  one 
week  and  four  days.  I  think  we've  made 
mighty  good  time  this  far,  for  I  believe  we 
must  be  considerably  over  a  himdred  miles 
from  Fort  McPherson  to  this  place  where  we 
stand." 

"It's  a  fine  morning  for  a  little  rest,"  sug- 
gested Rob.  "Maybe  it  wouldn't  be  wrong 
to  make  a  few  photographs.  I'd  like  to  make 
a  picture  of  that  high  peak  across  from  here, 
which  we  ought  to  call  Castle  Mountain. 
That's  the  mountain  we've  been  hunting  for 

the  last  three  or  four  days." 

192 


DOWN  THE  PORCUPINE 

"Agreed!"  said  Uncle  Dick.  ''I  think  it 
would  be  an  excellent  plan  to  rest  here  for  a 
time  to-day,  and  then  it  would  be  no  harm  to 
start  on.  Will  you  let  me  see  the  notes  of 
your  diary,  Rob?  We've  been  relying  on  you 
to  keep  a  record  of  our  journey  across  the 
mountains,  because  I've  been  too  busy  and,  to 
tell  the  truth,  too  worried,  to  have  much  time 
for  making  notes  of  the  trip." 

Rob  produced  his  diary,  and  Uncle  Dick 
read  it  page  by  page.  "Fine!"  said  he. 
"Fine!  This  doesn't  go  into  many  details, 
but  it  will  cover  the  story  of  our  trip  as  well 
as  I  could  have  done  it  myself.  Now,  after 
we  get  started  down  the  Bell  and  the  Porcu- 
pine, I  want  you  to  keep  up  the  same  thing, 
so  that  we  will  have  some  sort  of  a  record  of 
our  journey  in  this  wild  part  of  the  world. 

"I'll  have  to  admit  to  you  boys,  now  that 
we  are  alone,  that  I  don't  think  we  ought  to 
waste  any  time  in  here.  The  two  Indian  boys 
who  have  left  us  have  cut  down  our  supplies 
considerably,  but  as  they  can't  possibly  get 
back  to  McPherson  in  less  than  four  days, 
it  seemed  only  fair  to  share  with  them  what 
little  we  had,  though  it  means  less  for  us. 
We'll  have  to  hurry." 

"I'm  so  sick  and  tired  of  rabbits  by  this 
time,"   gnmibled  John,   "that  I   don't  ever 

193 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

want  to  see  one  again.  I  don't  like  to  clean 
them  any  more,  and  I  don't  like  to  smell  them 
when  they  are  cooking  in  the  kettle." 

"You're  not  the  first  man  in  the  North  to 
get  tired  of  rabbits,"  said  Uncle  Dick.  "For 
a  day  or  two  they  are  all  right,  but  there  is 
really  very  little  strength  in  the  meat.  They 
are,  however,  the  main  prop  of  the  fur  trade 
in  the  North,  and  the  mainstay  of  the  savage 
population  as  well.  Except  for  rabbits,  all 
these  natives  would  starve  to  death  in  the 
winter- time.  They  have  almost  nothing  to 
eat  from  one  season  to  the  next  after  the 
caribou  have  gone  by." 

"Where  is  the  caribou  migration  in  here?" 
asked  John. 

"It  won't  pass  here  at  all,"  replied  their 
leader.  "They  tell  me  that  the  caribou  are 
north  of  the  Porcupine,  toward  the  Arctic,  and 
that  they  work  south  along  toward  the  latter 
part  of  August.  There  are  a  few  sheep  in 
here,  but  mountain-sheep  is  a  hard  meat  to 
kill.  There  is  mighty  little  hope  for  us  to  get 
an3rthing  unless  we  can  catch  some  fish  as  we 
go  along — and  imless  we  continue  to  eat 
rabbits,  and  maybe  some  ptarmigan.  I 
shouldn't  wonder  if  the  ptarmigan  woiild  grow 
much  scantier  when  we  get  down  out  of  the 
mountains  farther. 

194 


DOWN  THE   PORCUPINE 

"Jesse,"  he  continued,  "there'll  be  no  harm 
in  your  taking  your  gun  and  going  over  to  see 
if  you  can  get  us  some  young  geese  or  some 
yoimg  ducks  before  we  start  out,  over  at  the 
edge  of  Loon  Lake.  We've  got  to  have  all  the 
food-supplies  we  can  possibly  get  hold  of, 
because  we  don't  know  what  is  ahead.  Hurry 
up,  now,  for  pretty  soon  we  must  call  our- 
selves rested  and  be  on  our  way.  Our  canoe 
is  waiting  for  us,  already  launched,  and  it 
won't  take  long  to  get  the  loads  aboard." 

Jesse  complied  with  his  uncle's  instructions, 
and,  taking  his  light  shot-gun,  disappeared  in 
the  fringe  of  willows  which  lay  between  the 
camp  and  the  marshy  borders  of  the  lake  out 
of  which  they  had  made  their  last  portage  on 
the  Rocky  Mountain  simimit.  It  was  not 
long  before  they  began  to  hear  the  reports  of 
his  gim,  and  so  proficient  had  he  by  this  time 
become  in  its  use  that  when  he  returned  in  the 
course  of  three-quarters  of  an  hoiu*  he  had  a 
yoimg  goose  and  a  half-dozen  mallard  ducks 
to  add  to  the  larder. 

"Fine!"  said  Uncle  Dick.  "Throw  them 
in  the  boat,  son,  and  we'll  be  getting  ready. 

"Rob,  go  on  with  your  diary;  and,  John,  be 
sure  that  you  keep  up  your  maps.  There  isn't 
a  single  report  of  any  kind  in  print  or  in 
manuscript,  so  far  as  I  know,  which  tells  the 

195 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

truth  about  this  summit  of  the  Rockies.  We 
are  just  as  much  explorers  as  if  we  were  the 
first  to  cross.     The  Klondikers  left  no  records. 

"And  now  take  one  last  look  around  you, 
for  I  question  if  you  will  ever  be  in  a  more 
remote  comer  of  the  world  in  all  your  lives. 
This  is  the  most  northerly  pass  of  the  Rockies. 
Yonder  above  us,  at  the  end  of  what  they  call 
the  Black  Mountain  range,  lie  the  last  foot-hills 
between  here  and  the  Arctic.  Off  in  that  di- 
rection the  Little  Bell  finds  its  head — no  man 
knows  where,  so  far  as  I  can  tell.  Westward 
in  general  lies  our  course  now,  and  we've  got 
to  make  five  himdred  miles  between  McPher- 
son  and  the  mouth  of  the  Porcupine  River, 
and  make  it  in  jig  time  too,  if  we  want  to 
catch  an  up-bound  boat  on  the  Yiikon  this 
fall." 

"Well,"  said  Rob,  "I  suppose  if  we  had  to 
we  could  play  Robinson  Crusoe  here  at  least 
as  well  as  those  poor  Klondikers  did  who  came 
to  grief  here  twenty  years  ago.  But  as  for 
me,  I  want  to  get  home  on  time — not  only 
because  we  have  to  go  to  school  and  because 
our  parents  are  waiting  for  us,  but  because  we 
set  out  to  make  our  round  trip  within  certain 
dates,  and  we  ought  to  do  so  if  that  is  a  possible 
thing." 

"  That's  the  talk !"  said  Uncle  Dick.  "  Come 
196 


DOWN  THE  PORCUPINE 

ahead  then,  boys.     Now  we  are  alone — let  us 
see  how  we  can  travel." 

Rob  did  as  requested  and  made  brief  notes 
of  their  coiuse  throughout  the  remainder  of 
their  trip  to  the  Yukon  River,  which  are  given 
here  as  he  wrote  them: 

"  Sunday,  July  2yt'h. — Beautiful  weath- 
er. Little  Bell  very  deep,  with  pools  on 
the  bends  literally  full  of  grayling.  They 
call  them  'bluefish'  here,  and  they  look 
purple  in  the  deep,  clear  water.  The 
Indian  boys  showed  us  how  to  cook  them. 
They  split  them  down  the  back  and 
skewer  them  flat,  and  then  hang  them  up 
before  the  fire,  flesh  side  to  the  fire.  They 
eat  them  off  the  skin  for  a  plate.  You 
wouldn't  believe  how  good  they  are. 

"Rabbits  and  ptarmigan  all  along  the 
banks.  Sometimes  we  have  to  get  out  to 
ease  the  canoe  down  the  rocky  rapids,  for 
we  must  not  cut  her,  since  she  is  the  only 
boat  we  have,  and  to  be  without  her  would 
ruin  us.  Water  is  icy  cold,  even  colder 
than  the  head  of  the  Rat,  which  was  bad 
enough. 

"At  6.30  to-day  struck  the  Big  Bell, 
a  deep  and  clear  river.  We  were  all  cold, 
so  built  a  fire.  Caught  some  grayling 
197 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

then.  Ran  till  lo  o'clock.  Camp  on  the 
tundra.  Wet  and  cold,  but  had  plenty  of 
wood  near  by,  so  had  good  fires. 

"LaPierre  House,  an  old  trading-post, 
now  abandoned,  must  be  not  far  ahead. 
That's  where  the  land  trail  comes  in  from 
Fort  McPherson,  according  to  the  stories. 
We  don't  believe  an3rthing  we  hear  any 
more,  as  all  the  tales  have  been  unreliable 
and  confusing.  Must  have  made  thirty 
miles  to-day  before  we  camped. 

''Monday,  July  28th.  —  Steady  grind 
down  the  Bell,  which  now  is  crooked  and 
sluggish.  At  2.15  in  the  afternoon  foimd 
a  cabin,  but  it  was  not  LaPierre  House. 
Found  many  names  on  this  cabin.  Also 
statement,  'It  is  ten  miles  to  LaPierre 
House.'  One  man  here  left  statement 
that  he  was  boimd  for  Fairbanks  in 
Alaska.  Another  man  and  his  wife  passed 
in  an  earlier  year,  *  Eleven  days  out  from 
McPherson  in  canoes.'  This  party  had 
four  Indian  boys,  who  expected  to  take 
nine  days  to  get  back  to  McPherson. 
This  man  must  have  gone  on  down  the 
Bell  River  alone. 

"Did  five  hours  before  lunch,  and  six 
after,  and  still  no  LaPierre  House. 
Traveled  until  10.15  and  stopped  to  cook. 
198 


DOWN  THE  PORCUPINE 

Rigged  a  light  outrigger  for  our  canoe 
for  night  travel,  which  might  be  danger- 
ous. We've  got  to  travel  day  and  night, 
and  take  turns  steering.  Don't  think  we 
got  over  three  and  a  half  to  four  miles 
an  hour,  it  may  be  three  miles  only, 
but  think  we  did  thirty-five  miles  to-day. 
No  game  and  no  fish  but  a  few  grayling 
in  the  morning.  We  feel  a  little  bit  gltim. 
We  can't  tell  where  we  are.  Rigged  a 
short  sail,  and  it  helped  us  a  little  bit. 
Mosquitoes  not  quite  so  bad.  Making 
slower  time  than  we  hoped. 

''Tuesday,  July  2Qth. — Tried  to  sleep 
in  boat,  and  didn't  do  very  well.  I  steered 
part  of  the  night,  and  Uncle  Dick  part  of 
the  time.  At  7  a.m.  made  LaPierre 
House.  It  is  eighty  miles  from  the  sum- 
mit at  least,  and  that  is  fully  twice  as  far 
as  we  were  told  that  it  was!  Some  said 
it  was  only  thirty  miles  beyond  the 
summit.  Saw  signs  where  raft  had  been 
built — maybe  some  Indians  coming  down- 
stream for  their  winter  quarters.  Heard 
a  man  started  across  McPherson  to 
LaPierre  House  on  the  land  trail  with  two 
dogs.  Too  much  plunder,  and  he  nearly 
died.  Don't  know  where  he  is  now.  Rain 
and  cold  all  day. 

14  199 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

"Ate  at  midnight.  We  take  turns 
paddling  the  best  we  can,  but  John  and 
Jesse  get  pretty  tired.  We  let  them  sleep 
more.  Weather  dismal  and  cold.  It  is 
hard  for  two  to  sleep  in  our  canoe  and  two 
to  nm  it  at  night.  Have  been  wet  and 
cold  a  good  deal. 

''Wednesday,  July  joth. — Breakfast  in 
rain.  Built  a  big  fire.  We  slept  a  little 
where  we  could  be  warm.  Off  at  12.50. 
Found  a  big  river  coming  in  from  the 
left,  and  knew  that  it  must  be  the  Porcu- 
pine. Struck  it  about  2  o'clock.  A  big 
wind  coming  up-stream.  At  first  we 
thought  the  Porcupine  was  running  to  the 
left.  Of  course  it  had  to  nm  to  the  right. 
Foimd  the  wind  hard  to  buck  with  the 
canoe,  so  that  we  stood  still  sometimes. 
At  6.30  went  ashore,  built  a  log  fire,  and 
dried  our  clothes  and  beds.  Everything 
very  wet.  John  and  Jesse  very  tired  and 
shivering.  Both  seem  pretty  near  ex- 
hausted. Wind  becoming  more  gusty. 
Fixed  our  canoe,  which  was  leaking  a 
little.  We  don't  know  just  how  far  it  is 
from  here  to  the  Porcupine.  Jesse  killed 
a  beaver.  We  boiled  the  tail  and  ate  it, 
and  it  was  good.     Pushed  on  a  little 

farther  in  the  dark. 

200 


DOWN  THE   PORCUPINE 

**  Thursday,  July  31st.  —  Summer  is 
going  awfully  fast.  Ran  in  for  breakfast 
on  a  stony  ledge.  Think  we  are  only 
going  about  two  miles  an  hour.  After 
breakfast  tried  to  sail,  and  think  we  ran 
ten  or  twelve  miles  easier.  Had  to  paddle 
then.  The  reaches  of  this  river  are  long 
and  the  current  is  slow.  The  man  who 
calls  the  Porcupine  and  the  Bell  '  rapid 
mountain  streams '  doesn't  know  what  he 
is  talking  about,  for  neither  is  rapid. 
Passed  the  mouth  of  the  Eagle  River  early 
in  the  day.  Landed  late  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Driftwood  River,  as  it  is  marked  on 
the  government  map.  Foimd  an  Indian 
here  with  one  canoe.  He  has  his  wife  and 
two  children  and  seven  dogs  here.  One 
strange  dog  has  come  into  his  camp.  It 
howls  a  great  deal  and  is  lost.  We  don't 
know  whose  it  is  or  where  it  came  from. 

"These  Indians  are  starving,  and,  little 
as  we  have,  we  have  to  give  them  some- 
thing. They  wanted  some  flour  and  fat, 
and  we  shared  almost  our  last.  They  have 
nets  set  and  are  waiting  for  the  salmon  to 
run.  The  Indian  has  only  caught  one 
salmon,  and  he  said  if  they  did  not  come 
pretty  soon  his  people  would  die.  They 
conclude  to  go  on  farther  down  the 
201 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

stream  with  us.  He  says  he  can  take 
everything  he  has  in  that  Httle  canoe. 
They  are  wonders  with  boats. 

"We  all  hustle  now,  because  starvation 
threatens  every  one  in  our  party.  Even 
rabbits  are  scarce.  No  ptarmigan,  no 
ducks,  no  fish.  The  river  is  big  and  the 
wind  affects  the  down-stream  speed. 

"  The  Indian  keeps  along  with  us.  His 
canoe  has  about  an  inch  and  a  half  free- 
board, and  is  loaded  down  with  children, 
dogs,  nets,  and  so  forth.  Glad  to  have  the 
Indian  with  us,  because  he  knows  some- 
thing of  the  coimtry.  He  says  Fish  River, 
the  next  stream  below,  is  half-way  to  Old 
Crow.  This  is  an  old  trading-post  which 
gets  supplies  from  the  Yukon,  and  we  will 
feel  safe  if  we  can  get  there. 

"Our  new  Indian  is  named  Andrew. 
He  can  talk  a  little.  He  says  the  land 
portage  from  Fort  McPherson  to  Fort 
LaPierre  is  lined  with  cast-off  stuff  that 
people  have  tried  to  carry  and  couldn't. 
It  is  a  starving  coimtry  and  a  starving 
march.  So  is  this  a  starving  journey  by 
water.  When  we  went  ashore  it  was  in  a 
rousing  gale  of  wind.  Uncle  Dick  baked 
some  bannocks  in  our  old  way,  leaning 
the  frjmig-pan  against  a  stick  driven 
202 


DOWN  THE  PORCUPINE 

down  before  the  fire.  We  are  so  tired 
that  when  we  don't  have  to  work  we 
just  fall  asleep  wherever  we  are.  We 
always  have  some  one  awake  to  watch 
things  and  to  tell  the  others  when  to  wake 
up.  We  have  been  wet  a  great  deal  of  the 
time  from  rain  and  waves.  Dried  our 
bedding  this  time,  once  more.  Not  much 
excitement  and  plenty  of  hard  work.  I 
don't  know  whether  any  of  us  would 
come  across  here  again  or  not.  Probably 
not. 

"After  a  long  wait  the  wind  let  up,  and 
we  started  in  the  late  evening  for  the  run 
to  Old  Crow,  which  we  are  anxious  to  see. 
Head  winds.  Hard  paddling.  Kept  on 
into  the  night,  but  met  an  awful  storm. 
Wind  was  almost  a  tornado,  and  for  a 
wonder  snow  fell  in  sheets.  Our  canoe 
got  turned  around  two  or  three  times 
in  the  night,  and  we  wouldn't  know 
which  way  to  go,  for  the  wind  came  up- 
stream and  every  other  way.  We  near- 
ly swamped.  Managed  to  get  ashore, 
drenched  to  the  skin  and  very  cold.  It 
looks  like  winter.  Andrew's  children  are 
cr3ring  a  great  deal  now.  We  haven't 
much  to  eat.  It  was  about  the  worst 
night  we  ever  had.  We  pushed  on  down 
203 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

as  fast  as  we  could  as  soon  as  we  got 
warm  enough  to  work.  Reached  Old 
Crow  trading-post  8  a.m.,  after  the  worst 
night  I  ever  spent. 

''Saturday,  August  2d. — What  luck! 
Old  Crow  post  is  deserted — no  one  here 
at  all — not  even  a  native  hanging  around ! 
Uncle  Dick  thought  it  was  right  to  break 
open  a  window  and  go  in.  There  was  a 
stove,  so  we  made  a  fire.  The  trader  had 
left  his  stock  here.  Of  course  it  was 
burglary  to  open  the  store.  If  an  Indian 
did  it  they  probably  would  follow  him  a 
thousand  miles  and  punish  him.  We  left 
a  note  telling  them  who  we  were  and  what 
we  had  taken — another  blariket  or  so, 
some  pairs  of  mittens,  and  a  little  clothing 
for  the  Indian  children,  who  were  almost 
frozen.  The  trader  lives  at  Fort  Yukon, 
and  we  will  pay  him  there. 

"Andrew  says  the  next  stop  is  going  to 
be  at  Rampart  House,  sixty  miles  down 
the  river.  We  have  taken  about  fourteen 
hours  to  make  the  last  thirty-five  miles, 
as  near  as  we  can  tell.  We  are  all  in  bad 
shape.    Getting  a  little  weak. 

"The  trader's  goods  have  been  dam- 
aged by  water.  This  wet  snow  fell  more 
than  a  foot  deep  over  ever3rthing,  and  the 
204 


DOWN  THE  PORCUPINE 

roof  has  leaked.  Well,  we  can't  stay  here 
long,  and  we'll  have  to  travel  day  and 
night  the  best  we  can.  Any  accident  now 
would  be  very  bad  for  everybody. 

"John  and  Jesse  paddle  all  they  can. 
We  all  get  very  cold,  as  it  seems  almost 
like  winter.  Stopped  to  get  warm  and 
eat.  Uncle  Dick  says  plenty  of  tea  won't 
hurt  us  if  we  work.  We  take  turns  fair  as 
we  know  how,  the  ones  paddling  who  can 
stay  awake. 

"Well,  we  are  nearer  to  being  safe.  By 
traveling  all  the  time,  fifteen  and  a  half 
hours  from  Old  Crow,  we  made  Rampart 
House — not  bad  time  if  the  distance  is 
correct.  Weather  cold.  Snow  threaten- 
ing again. 

''Sunday,  August  3d.  —  At  Rampart 
House.  One  week  from  the  summit. 
Two  weeks  from  the  mouth  of  the  Rat. 
Rampart  House  looks  mighty  good  to  us 
all.  Here  there  is  a  Hudson's  Bay  post 
with  some  goods  in  stock  and  a  young 
Englishman  nmning  it.  Natives  almost 
starving.  No  fish  yet.  The  men  are 
just  starting  out  for  caribou,  which  are 
now  reported  thirty  miles  north  of  here. 
Not  much  goods  left  in  the  trading-post. 
Our  reception  here  very  chilly.  No  one 
205 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

seems  to  care  whether  we  Hve  or  not,  and 
sometimes  we  have  been  so  tired  we 
hardly  did  ourselves. 

"The  trader  tells  us  it  is  240  miles 
from  here  to  the  Yukon,  and  it  seems  a 
long  way.  At  least  we  can  get  warm 
and  dry  here. 

"Next  day.  We  slept  eighteen  hours 
out  of  twenty-f  otu".  Weather  warming  up. 
Himters  not  back,  but  one  Indian  caught 
a  king  salmon  in  a  net,  so  the  village  is 
more  cheerful.  Everybody  shared  the 
salmon,  which  was  a  large  one,  fifty  poimds. 
These  people  are  Loucheux.  Sometimes 
squaw-men  live  in  here  at  Rampart  House. 
More  dogs  here  than  I  ever  saw.  One  ate 
my  moccasins  last  night — the  ones  that  I 
had  extra  soles  on.  I  wish  he  hadn't  done 
it,  because  I  needed  them. 

"This  is  an  important  post  in  the  North. 
It  is  old  and  well  known,  and  it  has  special 
interest  because  it  is  directly  on  the  In- 
ternational Boimdary-line.  There  is  a 
monument  here  which  the  American 
surveyors  put  up  not  long  ago.  They 
were  in  here  quite  a  while,  but  their  work 
of  marking  out  the  International  Boun- 
dary between  Alaska  and  the  Dominion 
of  Canada  is  now  done. 
206 


HUSKY  DOG RAMPART  HOUSE 


DOWN  THE   PORCUPINE 

"All  of  us  boys  got  gay  and  went  over 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Boundary  and 
took  off  our  hats  and  gave  three  cheers 
for  America.  We  were  glad  we  were  on 
American  soil  once  more.  We  feel  now  as 
if  we  were  getting  out  of  the  fur-trading 
country.  Am  not  sorry.  I  don't  like  the 
coimtry  or  the  people  in  it  very  much. 
Everything  seems  so  shiftless.  Still,  they 
manage  to  get  on.  I  suppose  if  I  lived 
up  here  a  himdred  years  things  might 
look  different. 

''Monday,  August  4th.  —  Breakfast 
10.30.  We've  got  some  supplies  here. 
Nothing  much  to  boast  of.  Fixed  up  our 
boat  again  for  the  long  run  for  home. 
We  feel  pretty  safe  now.  Left  Andrew  at 
Old  Crow,  but  saw  some  people  at  Ram- 
part who  knew  about  him  and  other 
travelers  who  are  back  of  us  on  the  Porcu- 
pine. We  hope  they  will  all  get  out. 
Winter  will  come  any  time  now.  Left  at 
4.30  in  the  afternoon.  Ran  two  hours 
and  had  tea.  River  rising  very  fast,  and 
current  swift,  so  that  we  thought  we  made 
five  or  six  miles  an  hoiir  at  least.  Ran 
two  and  a  half  hours,  some  of  us  paddling, 
and  thought  we  made  thirty  miles.  We 
are  trying  to  use  this  rise  in  the  river  all 
207 


YOUNG  ALASBCANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

we  can.  Camped  on  a  stony  beach.  Sand 
is  very  wet  and  cold  for  a  bed,  but  we  cut 
some  willows  and  did  fairly  well.  Not 
very  cold. 

"  Tuesday,  August  5th. — Struck  an  Ind- 
ian camp  and  traded  tea  for  some  fresh 
moose  meat,  which  we  were  mighty  glad 
to  get.  I  am  like  John — I  never  want  to 
see  a  rabbit  again. 

"To-day  passed  a  boat  tracking  up- 
stream for  Rampart.  A  man  and  dog 
were  pulling.  They  had  a  sail  set  to  help, 
and  the  steersman  was  poling  and  pad- 
dling the  best  he  could  to  help.  Even  so, 
it  was  a  slow  way  to  get  up-stream.  We 
felt  sorry  for  them  when  we  left  them. 
Later  in  the  day  met  still  another  boat, 
two  Indians  tracking  freight  up  to  Ram- 
part House.  They  say  sometimes  freight 
is  carried  up  this  river  with  a  power- 
boat. These  Indians  say  we've  come 
about  a  hundred  miles  from  Rampart, 
and  that  in  about  twenty  miles  we  will 
be  half-way  to  the  mouth  of  the  river. 
Wish  it  were  not  so  far. 

"  Wednesday,  August  6th. — This  is  hard 

work.    We  rested  and  paddled  and  slept 

and  paddled.     Too  much  wind,  and  we 

had  to  quit  toward  evening.     When  the 

208 


DOWN  THE   PORCUPINE 

wind  lulled  we  started  again.  Much 
rain  and  dark  weather.  Water  very  fast, 
probably  six  to  seven  miles  an  hour. 
We  eat  at  least  four  times  a  day,  so  as  to 
keep  strong  as  possible.  Considerable 
wind  now,  and  fall  seems  coming.  When- 
ever the  sujti  comes  out  and  we  can  lie 
down  in  the  sun,  we  do,  so  as  to  keep 
warm  while  we  sleep.  Don't  know  how 
far  it  is  to  Yukon,  but  have  been  making 
good  time. 

"  Thursday,  August  ytJi. — Head  winds 
again,  but  sun  bright  and  warm.  Spent 
considerable  time  ashore,  resting,  as  we 
were  about  played  out,  and  we  thought 
that  we  might  now  be  safe  in  a  little  delay. 
Got  off  late  in  the  afternoon,  and  did  well. 
Uncle  Dick  says  the  Yukon  can't  be  more 
than  fifty  to  seventy-five  miles  ahead. 
Camped  late  in  a  bimch  of  spruce,  and 
slept  until  2  o'clock  in  the  morning. 
When  we  began  to  nm  we  saw  signs  of  a 
salmon  fishery  such  as  we  have  in  Alaska. 
There  is  a  man  here  named  Martin,  and 
his  squaw  and  children  all  camped  on 
the  beach.  He  says  it  is  only  thirty-five 
miles  to  the  Yukon,  and  that  we  can  do  it 
in  six  or  seven  hours.    Hurrah ! 

''Friday,  August  8th.  —  We  can  still 
209 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

paddle,  but  are  not  very  strong,  any  of  us. 
Uncle  Dick  is  cheerful.  He  never  has  been 
out  of  sorts.  We  boys  have  been  pretty 
tired,  and  sometimes  Jesse  has  felt  almost 
like  crying,  he  was  so  played  out;  but  we 
have  all  done  the  best  we  could  to  keep  a 
stiff  upper  lip.  Hope  Uncle  Dick  will 
think  we  have  done  all  right.  Just  the 
same,  we  are  glad  we  are  coming  out  of 
the  worst  of  this  trip.  It  has  been  worse 
than  we  thought. 

"Passed  two  Indian  camps  in  late  eve- 
ning. Then  they  said  we  were  within  three 
hoiu-s  of  Yukon.  Entered  the  mouth  of  a 
white-stained  slough  which  meant  differ- 
ent waters  from  those  of  the  Porcupine. 
We  feel  that  we  are  now  in  the  Yukon 
coimtry — and  that's  our  coimtry,  be- 
cause the  Yukon  and  Alaska  are  one! 

''Ten  P.M.  Hurrah!  Hurrah!  At  Fort 
Yukon !  Here  is  the  American  flag  fl)H[ng 
from  the  Anglican  mission-house!  We 
are  crazy  with  joy,  all  of  us  boys,  and 
Uncle  Dick  smiles  all  the  time.  We  are 
safe  now,  because  they  say  there'll  be 
several  boats  up-stream  yet  this  fall. 
Uncle  Dick  says  there'll  be  no  more 
danger,  and  he  now  begins  to  tell  us  that 
we  have  been  through  worse  dangers 
aio 


DOWN  THE   PORCUPINE 

than  maybe  we  thought  of.  I  suppose  it 
was  a  pretty  rough  journey.  Certainly 
we  all  got  awfully  tired.  We  are  thin  as 
snakes,  all  four  of  us. 

"There  is  an  Indian  village  below  here, 
and  a  government  school  for  Indian  boys, 
besides  the  Anglican  mission-house  and 
church.  It  certainly  does  seem  more 
civilized.     This  is  our  own  coinitry. 

"And  this  is  the  Yukon  that  nms  be- 
tween the  banks  here  —  our  own  old 
Yukon !  I  love  it  better  than  the  Macken- 
zie. For  a  while  at  least  we  will  be  imder 
our  flag,  and  not  any  other.  All  tired. 
Next  we'd  better  go  to  bed.  However, 
made  camp  near  a  roadhouse,  almost  a 
mile  from  the  Indian  village.  Some 
whites  live  here  who  seem  tough  and 
noisy.  Some  liquor  here  with  them,  for 
they  seem  to  be  shouting  and  singing. 

"Although  we  have  been  on  American 
soil  or  American  water  since  we  left  Ram- 
part House  on  the  Porcupine,  this  seems 
to  us  like  the  first  time  we  have  really 
been  in  our  own  coimtry.  Good  night! 
Wish  we  were  all  home  at  Valdez  with 
our  people." 


XIV 

AT  FORT  YUKON 

IT  was  a  ragged  and  dirty  party  of  travelers, 
to  be  sure,  who  lay  in  the  litter  of  the 
dooryard  of  the  road-house,  wrapped  in  their 
blankets,  and  sleeping  late  in  spite  of  the 
warm  morning  sun  which  shone  into  their 
faces.  They  were  exhausted  by  the  long, 
trying,  and  hard  work  of  their  dangerous 
journey,  and,  once  they  felt  safe,  had  fallen 
into  the  half -stupor  which  follows  such  fa- 
tigue. Therefore  they  did  not  at  first  know 
of  the  presence  of  the  dignified  and  well- 
dressed  man  who  stood  hanging  over  the  gate 
of  the  road-house,  looking  at  the  sleepers  as 
they  lay  in  the  yard,  rolled  up  in  their  blan- 
kets. Uncle  Dick,  always  alert,  was  first 
awake,  and  sat  up  in  his  blankets. 

"  Good  morning,  sir,"  said  he  to  the  stranger. 

"Good  morning,  sir,"  replied  the  other,  in 
turn.  "Excuse  me,  but  I've  been  asked  to 
look  for  the  party  of  Mr.  Richard  Mclntyre, 

212 


AT  FORT  YUKON 

himself  and  three  young  boys,  who  are  re- 
ported to  be  lost  somewhere  between  here 
and  the  mouth  of  the  Mackenzie  River.  The 
relatives  have  sent  in  word  by  cable,  an(i 
naturally  it  has  come  into  my  hands." 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  sir,"  said  Uncle  Dick, 
sitting  still,  half -clad  in  his  blankets,  "but, 
although  you  may  not  suppose  it,  I  am  Mr. 
Mclntyre,  and  these  are  the  young  men  re- 
ferred to,  no  doubt.  You  have  word  from 
outside?" 

"From  Mrs.  Vernon  Wilcox,  of  Valdez, 
and  from  Mrs.  Henry  D.  Hardy,  of  the  same 
city;  I  have  the  message  here.  It  came  down 
from  Circle  City  on  the  last  boat." 

"And  you,  sir?    I  beg  your  pardon — " 

"I  am  the  archdeacon  of  the  Anglican 
Church  in  this  district,"  replied  the  other, 
"and  my  name  is  Hudson.  I  have  come  this 
morning  to  ask  you  to  our  house  to  live  dur- 
ing your  stay  here.  There  will  be  no  boat  out 
for  some  days  as  yet."  Still  he  looked  half- 
doubtfully  at  the  man  whom  he  addressed, 
as  though  possibly  he  might  be  some  impos- 
tor, so  strange  did  he  appear,  imshaven,  with 
long  hair,  and  in  garments  which  barely  clung 
together. 

Uncle  Dick  laughed  at  this,  and  explained 
that  he  did  not  blame  any  one  for  suspecting 

213 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

himself  and  his  party  of  anything  in  the  world. 
Then  he  called  to  his  young  companions,  and 
the  archdeacon  himself  smiled  when  he  saw 
the  four  standing,  the  fresher  for  the  pails  of 
water  which  they  threw  over  one  another,  in 
the  front  yard. 

"I  am  a  traveler  myself,"  said  he,  "and 
have  mushed  dogs  many  thousand  miles  in 
this  northern  coimtry.  So  I  know  what  hard 
travel  is,  winter  and  summer.  Come  with 
me,  if  you  please." 

So  they  accompanied  him  to  his  home,  the 
only  civihzed  place,  as  Uncle  Dick  was  dis- 
posed to  say,  in  all  the  settlement  thereabouts. 
Here  the  boys  of  the  party  had  the  best  meal 
they  had  known  for  many  a  day,  with  real 
meat  and  gravy  and  actual  bread  and  butter, 
Buch  as  they  had  been  used  to  at  home. 
Although,  of  course,  they  displayed  no  curi- 
osity in  their  host's  house,  they  were  well 
pleased  enough,  as  they  later  saw  signs  of 
comfort  and  good  taste  all  about  them. 

"Now,"  said  the  archdeacon,  after  they 
had  breakfasted,  "I  know  how  you  feel  about 
yotir  clothes.  Happily,  I  have  some  such 
clothing  provided  for  our  own  needs  here. 
Although  the  things  will  not  be  in  the  latest 
fashion,  perhaps  we  can  fix  you  up  better 
than  you  now  are. 

214 


AT  FORT  YUKON 

"As  for  you,"  he  said  to  Uncle  Dick,  "you 
are  welcome  to  a  suit  of  my  own  clothing  if 
it  will  serve  you.  We  are  not  dissimilar  in 
btiild,  I  believe.  Come  with  me  and  let  us 
see  what  we  can  do  for  you." 

In  half  an  hour  the  four  emerged  from  an- 
other room  in  the  house,  each  with  a  complete 
new  outfit,  and  to  each  of  them  it  seemed,  in 
the  circumstances,  that  they  were  especially 
well  dressed. 

"Well,"  said  Uncle  Dick,  "you  certainly 
are  Good  Samaritans  in  your  chiu*ch  here  in 
the  North.  I  shall  not  offend  you  by  offering 
pay  for  what  you  have  done  for  us,  but  we 
have  some  boats  here,  with  a  canoe  and  a  few 
odds  and  ends  of  that  sort,  which  we  shall  be 
most  happy  to  leave  with  you  when  we  go  out." 

"I  thank  you  very  much  for  that,"  said 
the  reverend  gentleman.  "All  such  things 
are  very  useful  to  us  indeed.  And  I  shall  be 
glad  to  have  them,  provided  that  you  are 
quite  finished  with  their  use. 

"And  now  will  you  tell  me  of  your  trip?" 
he  resumed.  "It  was  over  the  old  Klondike 
trail  of  twenty  years  ago — a  dangerous  trip 
for  you  to  take  with  just  boys  like  these." 

"Well,  you  see,"  said  Uncle  Dick,  with  a 
look  of  pride  on  his  face,  "these  are  not  just 
ordinary  boys.    They  are  an  Alaskan  product, 

15  215 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

'young  Alaskans,*  all  three  of  them,  and  more 
used  to  out  of  doors  than  are  most  yotmg  folk 
of  their  age.  They  are  good  travelers  already, 
better  than  many  a  man ;  they  have  made  the 
Peace  River  and  the  Saskatchewan,  have  run 
the  Big  Rapids  of  the  Columbia,  and  have 
killed  their  Kadiak  bear  in  southwest  Alaska. 
I  knew  what  they  were  or  I  never  would  have 
taken  on  this  trip  in  their  company.  I  fancy'* 
— and  he  smiled — ' '  that  they  did  better  than 
many  a  tenderfoot  who  came  over  the  Rat 
Portage  twenty  3^ears  ago." 

"No  doubt,  no  doubt!"  replied  the  arch- 
deacon. "I  join  you  in  yotir  pride  that  you 
are  all  Americans,  like  myself.  I,  too,  am 
something  of  an  explorer,  as  I  may  say  mod- 
estly. I  am  just  back  from  the  climbing  of 
Denali,  and  I  had  a  boy  with  me  in  that 
ascent — an  Indian  boy  he  was!" 

"Denali!"  exclaimed  Uncle  Dick,  excitedly. 
''You  mean  Moimt  McKinley — I  know  the 
Indian  name." 

The  older  man  nodded  with  gravity.  "Yes,** 
said  he.  "We  climbed  it  for  the  first  time — • 
the  first  scientific  time.  Of  course  you  know 
about  the  false  claims  that  have  been  made?" 

Uncle  Dick  rose  and  grasped  him  by  the 
hand  warmly.  "Sir,"  said  he,  "you  are  a 
great  man,  even  had  you  never  lived  so  long 

216 


AT  FORT  YUKON 

and  useful  a  life  here  in  your  work.  I  am 
glad  that  the  Church  and  not  the  traders  put 
the  first  flag  on  top  of  the  highest  mountain 
on  this  continent.  I  congratulate  you,  and 
I  am  proud  that  my  yoimg  friends  can  meet 
you  here." 

"It  was  not  so  difficult,"  said  the  reverend 
gentleman,  modestly,  once  more.  "Only,  be 
sure,  it  actually  was  done.  Be  sure  also  that 
it  was  a  boy — an  Indian  boy — who  first  set 
foot  upon  the  top  of  Alount  Denali.  I  held 
back  when  we  got  to  the  very  summit,  think- 
ing it  appropriate  that  a  native  of  the  people 
who  owned  this  land  before  we  came  should  be 
the  first  to  set  foot  upon  its  highest  summit." 

"Fine!"  said  Uncle  Dick.  "That's  what  I 
call  sportsmanship,  and  I  want  you  boys  to 
remember  it.  That's  something  different 
from  what  Admiral  Peary  did  when  he  found 
the  North  Pole.  We  are  well  met  here, 
Archdeacon,  if  you  will  allow  me  to  say  so, 
and  if  you  will  accept  us  I  may  say  that  we 
all  are  sportsmen,  and  sportsmen  are  always 
well  met." 

He  motioned  to  his  young  companions,  and 
each  of  them  in  turn  came  up  and  shook  hands 
with  this  explorer  of  the  Far  North,  who 
greeted  them  with  gravity  and  kindness. 

"Well,"  said  he,  at  length,  smiling,  "here 
217 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

is  oiir  little  wretched  town,  as  bad,  perhaps,  as 
any  white  and  Indian  settlement  in  Alaska. 
I  have  spent  many  years  among  these  people, 
and  I  presimie  I  am  disliked  as  much  as  any 
man  along  the  Yukon!  As  you  see,  we  stand 
for  law  and  order  here,  and  we  churchmen  are 
hated  here  for  that  reason.  We  arrest  some 
of  the  lawbreakers  and  take  them  down  to 
Ruby  to  the  courts,  and  have  them  fined  or 
imprisoned.  They  threaten  us — ^but  none  the 
less  you  see  we  have  not  run  away. 

"You  will  come  to  our  services  to-morrow?" 
he  added.  "Yonder  is  our  little  log  chtirch. 
Perhaps  our  services  will  prove  interesting 
for  a  special  reason.  I  speak  in  our  tongue, 
but  what  I  say  must  be  interpreted  to  my 
Indian  audience." 

"Certainly;  we'll  be  glad,"  said  Uncle  Dick. 
"We  feel  as  though  we  had  somewhat  lapsed 
these  last  few  weeks.  It  is  fine  to  be  with 
you  here  and  in  these  surroundings." 

"I  see  that  your  young  friends  carry  books 
in  their  pockets,  and  papers,"  rejoined  the 
archdeacon,  nodding  to  Rob  and  John. 

"Oh,  that's  nothing,  sir,"  said  Rob.  "We 
just  make  notes  of  things  as  we  go  along,  you 
see.  John  here  is  oiu-  map-maker.  He  always 
makes  maps  of  the  countries  which  we  visit. 
So  you  see — " 

218 


AT  FORT  YUKON 

"And  did  you  make  a  map  of  the  summit  of 
the  Rockies  —  the  old  Rat  Portage  of  the 
traders,  yoimg  man?" 

"Why,  yes,  sir,"  said  John.  "I  put  it  all 
down  here  as  we  went  along,  and  Uncle  Dick 
says  it's  pretty  good.    He's  an  engineer." 

He  now  spread  out  his  map  upon  the  table, 
as  their  host  suggested. 

"I'll  tell  you  why  I  asked,"  said  the  latter. 
"As  I  have  said,  I  have  been  obliged  to  be  an 
explorer  and  a  traveler  myself — my  field  is 
very  large.  It  is  nothing  for  me  to  travel  a 
himdred  miles  behind  a  dog-sled  in  the 
winter-time  to  hold  services  or  to  make  a 
baptism  or  a  wedding.  Sometime  I  hope  to 
make  that  very  journey  that  you  have  made. 
At  Dawson  I  have  seen  some  maps,  or  alleged 
maps,  but  no  two  are  alike." 

"That's  what  Uncle  Dick  told  us  and  what 
we  have  found  out,"  said  Rob.  "We  couldn't 
get  any  idea  of  that  coimtry  at  all,  and  had  to 
find  it  out  for  ourselves." 

"I'll  tell  you  what  I'll  do,  sir,"  said  John. 
"When  I  get  back  home  and  into  Uncle 
Dick's  engineering  office  I'll  make  you  a 
tracing  of  my  map,  and  you  can  have  it  for 
your  very  own.  I  shall  be  very  glad  to  do 
that." 

"And  if  you  will  I  shall  be  very  much  in 
219 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

your  debt,  my  young  friend,"  said  the  arch- 
deacon. "That  will  be  fine,  and  I  shall  value 
it.  I  fancy  that  many  a  Klondiker  who  was 
cast  away  in  the  winter-time  in  that  wild 
country  would  have  been  glad  to  have  had 
such  assistance  as  this.  But  not  even  Harper 
or  McQueston  or  any  of  the  other  early  ex- 
plorers on  the  Peace  and  the  Liard  and  the 
Mackenzie  and  the  Peel  and  the  Rat  and  all 
these  rivers  running  into  the  Yukon  which 
have  been  so  famous  for  their  gold — not  one 
of  these  men,  I  will  say,  could  ever  make  an 
exact  map  of  the  country 'he  had  crossed.  As 
for  the  traders — well,  you  know  that  yourself. 
They  don't  want  new-comers,  and  they  don't 
help  them  any  too  much."  He  sighed, 
spreading  out  his  hands  with  but  partial 
resignation. 

"It  is  a  hard  fight  which  the  Church  wages 
with  the  fur  trade  in  the  North.  We  are 
antagonistic,  although  we  live  side  by  side, 
both  Anglican  and  Catholic  missions,  almost 
in  the  dooryard  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company 
and  Revillons  and  all  the  smaller  fry  of  in- 
dependents which  are  pushing  in  now.  But 
we  do  oiu"  best. 

"Now,  then,  yoimg  sir,"  he  resumed,  turn- 
ing to  Rob,  "I  have  no  doubt  that  your  notes 
are  as  good  as  this  young  man's  map.    I  hope 

320 


AT  FORT  YUKON 

you  will  keep  up  your  diary  just  as  I  have 
done  in  much  of  my  exploration  work  in 
Alaska  and  the  Northwest  Territory.  These 
things  are  invaluable  in  later  life." 

Rob  thanked  his  host  very  much,  and 
promised  to  do  as  he  advised.  Therefore, 
what  he  found  of  interest  at  this,  the  first 
considerable  American  settlement  they  met 
on  the  Yukon,  should  prove  worth  setting 
down  in  his  own  words. 


XV 

THE  FUR  TRADE 

THE  memoranda  which  the  historian  of 
the  party  set  down  regarding  Fort 
Yukon  had  more  or  less  to  do  with  the  scenes 
and  incidents  connected  with  the  fur  trade 
which  had  come  under  his  observation.  But 
before  coming  to  these  Rob  put  down  a  few 
things  regarding  the  nature  of  this  American 
settlement  on  the  great  river  of  Alaska : 

^^ Saturday,  August  gth. — We  had  forks 
and  napkins  at  the  archdeacon's  house. 
Went  out  to  see  the  town.  Indian  tents 
scattered  over  three-fourths  of  a  mile. 
Three  stores,  a  post-office,  a  church,  and  a 
road-house.  Foimd  the  owners  of  the 
store  at  Old  Crow  which  we  burglarized, 
and  paid  them  for  what  we  got.  They 
said  it  was  all  right.  Seems  as  though 
there  are  himdreds  of  dogs  here.  Boat 
expected  up  the  Yukon  almost  any  day — 

222 


THE  FUR  TRADE 

there  is  no  regular  time  for  their  landing 
here. 

' '  Sunday,  August  loth. — Went  to  church 
in  the  log  church.  The  archdeacon 
preached.  A  full-blood  by  the  name  of 
David  interpreted.  Another  native  read 
the  liturgy,  but  not  very  well.  The 
sermon  was  simple  and  plain.  He  touched 
the  natives'  pride.  Told  them  how  they 
used  to  get  along  with  bows  and  arrows 
and  stone  axes,  how  they  conquered  the 
wilderness;  told  them  not  to  forget  those 
virtues  and  not  to  give  way  to  the  vices  of 
white  people.  Many  strange  faces  in  the 
audience.  Saw  one  like  a  Japanese 
samurai,  with  bristling  beard  and  stiff 
black  hair.  Have  seen  this  type  every- 
where these  last  1,500  miles — people  who 
look  like  Japs.  I  don't  think  much  law 
and  order  here.  White  men  married  to 
Indian  women.  There  is  a  government 
school  and  a  good  many  Indian  children 
go  there.  The  men  get  too  much  whisky 
here. 

"The  archdeacon  is  a  great  traveler. 
He  told  me  why  people  up  north  like 
bright-colored  clothes.  He  says  that  the 
hind  sack  on  his  sled  is  brilliantly  em- 
broidered, and  when  he  is  mushing  dogs 
333 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

he  finds  himself  looking  at  this  bright 
piece  of  color.  All  the  landscape  is  very 
monotonous,  and  the  night  is  hard  to 
endure  so  long.  He  says  that  is  why  the 
natives  like  bright  colors. 

"This  afternoon  in  the  archdeacon's 
house  I  found  a  strange  old  book.  It 
seems  to  have  been  written  by  some 
preacher  some  hundreds  of  years  ago. 
His  name  was  Bartolomeo  de  Las  Casas. 
He  must  have  been  a  Spaniard,  for  he  is 
writing  about  the  Indians.  He  says, 
'We  are  killing  them,  and  have  done  so 
relentlessly.'  Seems  to  me  that  was  a 
good  deal  like  the  fur  trade.  He  goes  on 
and  says  some  more  from  Ecclesiastes : 
'The  Most  High  is  not  pleased  with  the 
offerings  of  the  wicked.  Neither  is  He 
pacified  for  sin  by  the  multitude  of  sac- 
rifices. Whoso  bringeth  an  offering  of 
the  goods  of  the  poor  doth  as  one  that 
killeth  the  son  before  the  father's  eyes.' 

"Well,  that  soimds  as  though  some  one 
were  writing  at  the  big  fur  monopolies 
and  the  way  they  handle  the  Indians. 
Las  Casas  says  that  his  Chtirch  thought 
they  owned  all  the  middle  part  of  this 
continent.  The  Hudson's  Bay  Company 
started  in  to  own  all  the  northern  part 
224 


THE  FUR  TRADE 

of  it.  I  can't  see  the  difference.  Las 
Casas  says  the  discovery  and  conquest 
of  the  American  dominions  has  wrought 
ruin  to  Spain  as  a  nation.  The  results 
were  *  disastrous  to  her  power. '  I  am  only 
a  boy,  and  don't  know  much  about  things, 
but  I  know  perfectly  well  the  fur  trade 
is  based  on  injustice.  I  consider  it  the 
most  ignoble  form  of  business  in  the 
world.  I  think  it  is  pulling  down  the 
Indians — as  the  archdeacon  said  in  his 
sermon,  they  were  more  manly  and  self- 
respecting  before  the  traders  came.  If 
the  government  of  Canada  claims  to  be 
so  good,  it  might  look  into  the  injustice 
done  to  the  native  people  by  some  of  the 
traders,  both  the  old  companies  and  the 
independents.  I  have  read  som^ewhere, 
*No  right  is  or  can  be  founded  on  injus- 
tice.'    So  what  rights  have  they  got? 

"The  Spaniards  were  after  gold,  and 
these  big  companies  are  after  fur.  They 
have  both  relied  on  keeping  the  natives 
down.  That's  why  they  are  so  jealous 
of  outsiders  getting  any  knowledge  about 
their  ways. 

"I  have  heard  that  an  Indian  always 
pays  his  debts  to  the  trader.  On  this 
trip  I  heard  a  man  say  that  the  big  com- 

325 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

panies  never  forgive  an  Indian  a  debt 
in  all  his  life.  He  would  not  dare  to  let 
his  debt  run  if  he  could  pay  it,  because  if 
he  did  he  would  starve. 

"  I  wonder  if  old  Mr.  Las  Casas  was  any 
relation  to  the  archdeacon  here.  They  both 
preach  a  good  deal  alike,  it  seems  to  me. 
He  says,  'The  system  of  oppression  and 
cruelty  in  dealing  with  the  natives  makes 
them  curse  the  name  of  God  and  our  holy 
religion.  .  .  .  For  should  God  decree  the 
destruction  of  Spain  it  may  be  seen  it  is  be- 
cause of  our  destruction  of  the  Indians,  and 
that  His  justice  may  be  made  apparent.' 

"Well,  I  guess  that  will  be  all  I  will  write 
out  of  the  book.  I  was  just  thinking  that 
what  the  Spaniards  did  in  getting  gold  was 
something  like  what  the  white  men  are 
doing  to-day  in  getting  fur  in  this  northern 
coimtry.    It  never  did  look  good  to  me. 

"But  though  the  Indians  don't  always 
remember  everything  they  hear  in  church, 
I  believe  the  Chiirch  is  honester,  whether 
it  is  the  English  Church  or  the  Catholic, 
or  any  of  them,  because  they  haven't 
anything  to  get  out  of  it,  so  far  as  I  can 
see,  and  the  traders  have.  I  don't  think 
I  shall  very  much  enjoy  seeing  fine  furs 
worn  by  ladies  in  my  own  country  after 
226 


THE  FUR  TRADE 

this — I  know  where  they  come  from  and 
what  they  cost.  I  wonder  what  Las 
Casas  would  say  if  he  were  here. 

"A  good  many  Scotchmen  are  through 
this  northern  country,  and  some  Scandi- 
navians. I  read  in  a  book  by  Mr.  Stew- 
art that  you  could  tell  the  Scotchman 
even  in  a  half-breed  because  he  always 
says  'boy'  and  'whatever'  the  way  the 
Highlanders  do — no  matter  how  old  you 
are  a  Highlander  always  calls  you  'boy.* 
He  says  the  Bishop  of  Saskatchewan  had 
a  half-breed  boy  working  for  him  who 
always  called  him  'Boy  my  Lord.'  That 
seems  odd  to  me!  And  then  about  their 
saying  'whatever' — a  Scotch  half-breed 
said,  'We  use  it  because  we  could  not 
express  ourselves  without  it  whatever.' 
And  then  he  said,  'Is  it  not  correct  what- 
ever?' And  after  a  while  he  said  he  could 
see  no  objection  to  that  word  whatever. 
A  Highlander  always  says  'whatever,' 
and  you  can't  keep  him  from  it.  I  no- 
ticed that  in  some  of  the  posts  we  came 
through. 

"A  woman  here  was  sixty  years  old, 
and  she  married  a  carpenter,  and  he  took 
her  money  and  started  a  sawmill.    They 
haven't  got  any  sawmill  now. 
227 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

"A  good  many  people  here  talk  about 
other  people.  I  have  noticed  that  in 
almost  any  small  place,  but  I  think  it 
is  worse  up  here  in  the  North.  I  suppose 
they  get  lonesome  and  have  to  talk. 

"Another  thing  is,  they  drink  so  much 
up  in  this  country  whenever  they  get  a 
chance.  They  don't  keep  their  gallon 
of  Scotch  whisky,  which  is  supposed  to 
last  them  a  year,  but  sit  down  and  drink 
it  up  in  two  days.  So  they  get  out  of 
whisky  and  some  people  get  crazy  for  it. 
In  this  same  book  by  Mr.  Stewart  he 
tells  about  some  men  at  one  of  the  trad- 
ing-posts of  the  Mackenzie  who  didn't 
have  any  liquor,  but  the  summer  before 
there  had  been  a  party  of  scientists  there 
who  had  left  some  insects,  bugs,  and  snakes 
and  things,  done  up  in  alcohol.  Some 
other  traders  visited  this  agent,  and  he 
was  sorry  not  to  have  anything  to  give 
them  to  drink.  So  he  thought  he  would 
pour  off  this  alcohol  from  the  bugs  and 
things.  Still,  he  thought  it  might  be 
poison,  so  he  tried  it  on  a  half-breed 
dog-driver.  It  did  not  kill  him,  so  he 
served  it  to  his  friends,  and  said  nothing 
about  it,  and  they  all  thought  it  was  very 
good!  I  believe  this  is  a  true  story,  be- 
228 


THE  FUR  TRADE 

cause  so  many  things  happen  up  in  this 
country  that  we  don't  hear  about  at  home. 

"Monday,  Augtist  nth. — This  is  on  the 
steamship  Schwatka,  and  we  are  bound  up 
the  Yukon!  We  said  good-by  early  this 
morning  to  the  good  archdeacon.  It  was 
dark  when  he  heard  the  dogs  howHng, 
and  knew  a  boat  was  coming,  so  he  called 
us  and  we  hurried  and  got  dressed,  and 
just  got  on  this  boat  in  time.  She  isn't 
towing  any  barge,  so  ought  to  make  good 
time  up  to  Dawson.  We  were  sorry  to 
leave  the  archdeacon,  but  we  are  glad 
to  be  on  our  way  home. 

''We  get  four  meals  a  day  on  the 
Schwatka,  and  very  good  ones.  John  is 
happy !  We  think  we  will  all  put  on  a  little 
flesh  before  we  get  home.  Uncle  Dick 
is  writing  and  going  over  his  notes.  John 
is  making  his  map.  Jesse  is  reading.  So 
I  write. 

"Tuesday,  August  12th. — At  1.30  in 
the  morning  we  made  Circle  City,  which, 
as  everybody  knows,  is  right  on  the  Arctic 
Circle,  or  was  supposed  to  be.  This  was 
the  first  time  Uncle  Dick  could  get  out 
any  word.  He  sent  out  a  message  by 
wireless  which  will  be  relayed  to  Skag- 
way  and  cabled  to  Valdez.  He  said  in 
229 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

about  ten  days  we  would  be  at  Skagway. 
Our  folks  will  be  mighty  glad  to  hear 
from  us — and  how  glad  we'll  be  to  get 
home!  We  are  still  inside  the  limit  of 
the  time  schedule  which  Uncle  Dick  set 
for  us.  Now  we  think  we  are  safe  to 
finish  the  journey  inside  our  schedule. 
Pretty  good,  we  all  think. 

"Wednesday,  August  ijth. — At  8.30 
this  morning  got  to  Eagle,  which  is  an  old 
Alaska  settlement  and  was  once  an  army 
post.  There  is  an  Anglican  mission  here. 
The  scenery  aroimd  here  is  far  beyond 
anything  that  was  on  the  Mackenzie 
River.  We  all  like  the  Yukon  better  than 
the  Mackenzie.  Some  Church  people 
going  out  on  the  boat  from  here. 

"I  don't  know  how  the  Klondikers 
got  up  the  Yukon  after  they  had  come 
over  the  Rat  Portage ;  but  Dawson  is  three 
days  above  Fort  Yukon  by  steamboat. 
If  they  tracked  or  poled  or  rowed  up  I 
bet  it  took  them  a  good  deal  more  than 
three  days. 

"Uncle  Dick  has  asked  me  to  set  down 
everj'thing  I  see  at  Dawson,  which  is  the 
big  gold-camp  that  caused  the  Klondike 
stampede  in  1897;  so  I  think  I  will  do 
that  the  best  I  can." 
220 


XVI 

DAWSON,   THE   GOLDEN   CITY 

ROB'S  diary  went  on  as  he  had  promised, 
for  diiring  the  time  that  they  lay  be- 
tween boats  at  the  once  famous  gold-camp 
there  was  abundant  opportimity  for  them  to 
get  about  and  see  pretty  much  everything 
there  was  worth  seeing.  Rob's  record  runs 
day  by  day  as  previously : 

*' Thursday,  August  14th. — Dawson  at 
4  A.M.  Our  boat  does  not  go  any  farther. 
We  reserved  passage  on  the  Norcom  for 
White  Pass.  She  will  sail  the  evening  of 
next  Saturday.     On  British  soil  again. 

"This  place  has  had  twenty  or  thirty 
thousand  inhabitants  in  boom  times,  but 
there  are  only  about  twelve  hundred 
people  here  now,  I  believe.  A  good  many 
people  are  starting  off  for  Chisana  dis- 
trict, up  the  White  River,  where  they  say 
there  is  a  gold  strike.     All  this  country 

16  231 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

has  been  crazy  over  gold  strikes  for  a 
good  deal  more  than  twenty  years. 

"We  went  to  a  hotel  here  and  got  baths 
and  got  barbered  up,  which  makes  a  change 
in  our  looks.  We  got  a  few  things  to  wear 
which  the  archdeacon  could  not  give  us. 

"Friday,  August  15th. — ^Went  up  the 
famous  Klondike  River,  which  comes  in 
here.  Half  of  it  is  clean  and  the  other 
half  dirty.  Saw  no  more  pick-and-shovel 
work.  Everything  is  nm  by  the  big 
dredges  owned  by  companies,  which  do 
the  work  of  hundreds  of  men.  They  thaw 
out  the  ground  now  with  steam-pipes 
which  they  drive  down  in,  and  then  turn 
in  steam.  Then  they  rip  out  the  groimd 
down  twenty  feet  with  the  big  scoops  of 
the  dredges.  They  just  have  water 
enough  to  float  the  dredges.  Everything 
is  worked  and  washed  right  on  the 
dredge.  It  beats  placer  mining  a  whole 
lot.  But  a  few  men  can  work  one  of 
these  dredges,  and  then  a  few  men  get  all 
the  money  they  turn  out. 

"Walked  on  up  to  Bonanza  and  some 
of  the  famous  creeks  above  the  dredges. 
They  are  using  hydraulic  mining  up  there, 
another  wholesale  way.  Saw  no  individ- 
ual mining. 

232 


DAWSON,  THE  GOLDEN  CITY 

''We  boys  ate  supper  with  a  lot  of 
French  people  who  are  working  'lays'  on 
some  claims  which  are  owned  by  other 
people  on  the  hillsides  up  toward  Bonanza. 
The  bed-rock,  where  the  rich  gold  is,  is 
about  the  middle  of  the  hill,  and  nms 
straight  through,  and  they  are  following 
through  right  along  the  bed-rock  three 
himdred  feet  below  the  surface.  They 
have  '  drifted '  in  here,  and  they  are  using 
hydraulic  mining,  too.  They  seemed  a 
jolly  lot.  They  have  a  woman  cooking 
for  their  crew,  and  asked  us  to  eat  with 
them — the  best  they  had.  We  could 
not  talk  much  in  their  language,  and 
they  did  not  understand  very  much  of 
ours. 

"We  walked  down  from  the  mountains, 
four  and  a  half  miles,  in  an  hour  and  five 
minutes,  and  were  not  tired. 

^'Saturday,  August  i6th.  —  The  Com- 
missioner of  Yukon  Territory — who  is 
about  the  same  as  a  governor  would  be 
in  a  Territory  of  the  United  States — 
asked  us  to  luncheon  to-day,  because  he 
knew  of  Uncle  Dick.  So  we  all  went  and 
had  a  very  pleasant  time.  This  is  the 
Government  House,  and  it  has  the 
British  flag  over  it,  of  course.  Every- 
233 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

body  was  very  nice  to  us,  and  other 
ladies  and  gentlemen  asked  us  a  lot  of 
questions,  and  we  did  of  them,  too.  We 
felt  very  much  at  home  here,  and  friendly. 
The  Governor,  or  Commissioner,  used  to 
be  American  himself.  He  came  up  here 
in  the  early  gold  days. 

"One  gentleman  at  the  limcheon  told 
a  good  many  stories  of  the  old  times.  He 
told  how  cold  it  got  sometimes.  He  said 
once  they  made  some  candles  out  of  con- 
densed milk.  They  sold  them  to  a  saloon- 
keeper, for  a  joke,  because  every  one 
wants  candles  in  the  winter-time,  but  the 
saloon-keeper  could  not  light  these  candles 
at  all !  He  said  there  used  to  be  a  yoimg 
man  in  Dawson  they  called  '  The  Evapo- 
rated Kid'  because  he  was  so  thin.  He 
said,  too,  there  was  a  runaway  express 
agent  who  had  absconded  from  somewhere 
in  America,  and  when  he  got  to  Dawson 
he  hadn't  anything  except  one  painting, 
a  copy  of  a  celebrated  picture  in  Etuope. 
He  sold  it  for  a  half -interest  in  a  claim, 
which  proved  to  be  worth  $60,000.  He 
went  back  to  the  States  and  gave  himself 
up,  and  got  a  month  in  jail  after  he  had 
paid  what  he  had  stolen.  Then  he  came 
back  to  Alaska  and  has  made  a  good 
234 


DAWSON,  THE  GOLDEN  CITY 

citizen !  He  has  always  kept  the  old  man 
who  sold  the  interest  in  this  claim.  Of 
course  they  wotildn't  tell  us  the  name  of 
this  man. 

''They  say  the  best  place  for  hunting 
big  game  is  to  go  up  the  Pelly  River  and 
then  up  the  IvIacMillan  River.  White 
Horse  is  a  good  place  to  start  from.  There 
are  sheep  up  in  there,  of  two  kinds,  and 
moose  and  grizzly  bear  and  caribou. 
September  is  the  best  time  to  go  in  there, 
but  it  would  take  about  a  month,  and  a 
fellow  would  have  to  be  carefiil  not  to  get 
caught  in  the  snow.  The  Mount  McKin- 
ley  country  is  even  better  as  a  big-game 
place,  so  they  tell  me.  I  wish  we  boys 
could  go  in  there  some  time. 

"They  used  to  get  all  kinds  of  money 
in  here  in  the  early  days.  This  same 
gentleman  told  me  he  once  had  an  interest 
in  a  claim  w^here  they  took  out  $430,000  on 
a  fraction  of  a  claim  which  was  only  eighty 
feet  by  four  hundred.  He  says  the  dredge 
people  have  found  that  they  can  work 
much  poorer  dirt  than  eight  dollars  a  yard, 
which  would  pay  a  shovel-man.  One  man 
can  only  rock  about  two  and  a  half  yards 
a  day.  He  can  sluice  about  twice  that. 
A  dredge,  working  four  men,  works  from 
235 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

2,400  to  3,000  tons  a  day.  So  you  see  why 
dredges  are  in  here  now.  He  said  nearly 
all  the  men  who  got  rich  easy  lost  their 
money.  There  was  a  lucky  Swede  who 
married  an  extravagant  woman,  and  she 
spent  all  his  money — several  hundred 
thousand  dollars — right  away;  but  he 
only  laughed  and  said,  'I'll  strike  it  again 
pretty  soon.*  But  he  never  has.  He 
says  there  were  a  good  many  hundreds 
of  men  who  held  on  to  their  stakes  and 
went  out  with  50,000  to  100,000  dollars 
each.  It  must  have  been  exciting  times  in 
this  little  old  town!     Very  quiet  now. 

"All  the  pictures  of  Dawson  show  the 
big  white  scar  on  a  moimtain-side  where 
a  landslip  took  off  the  whole  side  of  the 
mountain  many  years  ago.  The  Indians 
say  it  buried  a  village  at  its  foot.  This 
big  hole  in  the  mountain  is  right  where  you 
can  see  it  down  the  street.  You  can't 
help  seeing  it  if  you  go  to  Dawson. 

*'I  was  much  interested  about  the  first 
man  who  discovered  this  country.  They 
don't  all  tell  the  same  story  about  it.  The 
Yukon  Territory  and  Alaska  are  so  much 
alike,  and  the  people  settling  them  have 
been  so  much  alike,  that  it  seems  they  are 
about  the  same.  We  crossed  the  intema- 
236 


DAWSON,  THE  GOLDEN  CITY 

tional  boundary  between  them  away  back 
at  Rampart  House.  From  there  to  here, 
on  both  sides  of  that  line,  men  have  been 
coming  into  this  coimtry,  no  one  knows 
how  long. 

"Jack  McQueston,  so  Mr.  Ogilvie 
says  in  his  book  about  the  Yukon 
country,  established  Fort  Reliance,  six 
miles  below  where  Dawson  is,  in  1871. 
Then  Arthur  Harper  came  in  and  joined 
him  in  trading.  One  time  some  Indians 
got  hold  of  their  rat  poison,  and  two  old 
women  and  one  girl  died.  That  made  the 
Indians  sore,  so  the  traders  had  to  pay  for 
the  women.  They  said  the  two  old 
women  were  no  good,  but  they  would  pay 
ten  skins  for  the  young  woman,  about 
six  dollars.  The  Indians  said  that  was 
all  right!     It's  a  funny  coimtry. 

''After  that  a  man  by  the  name  of 
Mayo  came  in  with  Harper  and  Mc- 
Queston, and  in  1886,  so  this  book  says, 
they  went  down  to  Forty-Mile  River, 
where  they  found  gold  already  discovered. 
It  was  McQueston  that  founded  Circle 
City,  but  it  is  not  really  on  the  line — 
nearly  a  degree  in  latitude  south  of  it. 

"Harper   and   McQueston   seemed   to 
move  all  around  everywhere.    They  said 
237 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

they  found  color  on  the  Peace  River  and 
on  the  Liard,  but  did  not  find  anything  on 
the  Mackenzie.  But  on  the  Peel  River 
they  found  good  prospects,  and  some  on 
the  Porcupine  also.  They  were  all  over 
that  country,  where  we've  been. 

"This  Harper  party  came  over  the  Rat 
Portage,  too,  the  way  we  did,  and  they 
describe  it  about  the  way  we  would.  But 
that  was  long  before  the  Klondike  rush, 
for  they  got  to  Fort  Yiikon  on  July  15,  . 
1873.  The  Klondike  was  not  known  then, 
nor  until  more  than  twenty  years  later. 

"I  guess  that  the  man  who  really  ought 
to  have  the  credit  for  finding  the  gold  in 
the  Klondike  coimtry  was  Bob  Hender- 
son. He  was  not  trading  so  much  as 
prospecting.  Besides,  he  got  his  start 
about  the  way  most  prospectors  do — an 
Indian  showed  him  some  pieces  of  gold, 
and  showed  him  the  place  where  he  found 
them.  Anyhow,  that  is  how  Harper 
foimd  some  gold  in  the  Tanana  country. 
But  Harper,  though  he  was  around  in 
this  country  twenty-four  years,  never 
foimd  any  big  strike.  He  died  in  Arizona 
in  1897.  Jack  McQueston  stayed  in  later, 
and  everybody  remembered  him  as  a 
generous  trader. 

238 


DAWSON,  THE  GOLDEN  CITY 

"They  say  that  the  first  gold  to  come 
out  of  the  Yukon  came  from  the  Tanana 
River  in  1880.  A  Mr.  Holt  of  the  Alaska 
Commercial  Company  took  the  first  party 
over  the  Dyea  Pass  and  down  the  Yukon, 
in  1875.  They  say  a  very  little  gold  came 
out  in  1882  and  1883,  but  nobody  had 
ever  heard  of  the  Klondike  then. 

"McQueston  liked  the  Stewart  River 
better  than  any  place  for  a  long  while. 
They  got  gold  in  a  great  many  streams 
nmning  into  the  Yukon,  and  found  it  on 
nine  creeks  as  early  as  1894.  They  sent 
out  about  $400,000  that  year.  There  were 
a  good  many  miners  all  along  the  river 
even  in  1894 — seventy-five  miners  in  one 
party  of  stampeders.  But  still  no  one 
had  heard  of  the  Klondike,  although  they 
had  prospected  between  the  Yukon  and 
the  Arctic  Ocean  and  far  down  to  the 
mouth  of  the  Yukon,  and  about  every- 
where else! 

"Harper  and  McQueston  had  been  on 
the  Klondike,  but  did  not  find  anything 
at  first.  Bob  Henderson  had  as  much 
nerve  as  anybody.  They  went  up  on  Ind- 
ian River,  which  runs  parallel  to  the 
Klondike,  about  fifteen  miles  away.  Hen- 
derson worked  on  Quartz  Creek,  they  say, 
239 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

and  he  had  to  thaw  out  his  ground  with 
log  fires  the  way  they  used  to  do,  so  he 
did  not  make  much.  Then  he  worked  on 
Australia  Creek.  Of  cotirse  these  men 
all  moved  around  a  good  deal.  He  only 
got  about  6co  or  700  dollars  on  the  creek 
where  he  was  working,  so  he  moved  over 
to  a  stream  which  he  thought  ran  into  the 
EHondike,  and  he  called  this  Gold  Bottom. 
He  got  the  color  here. 

"Bob  Henderson  met  George  W.  Car- 
mac,  and  he  offered  to  share  his  new 
strikes  up  on  Gold  Bottom,  but  he  drew 
the  line  at  the  Indians  Carmac  was  living 
with !  So  Carmac  did  not  go  out  at  first. 
But  Carmac  and  two  Indians,  Charley 
and  George,  did  go  up  the  Klondike,  and 
up  Bonanza  after  a  little,  about  a  mile 
above  the  mouth.  They  were  looking 
after  logs  for  Ivimber.  But  they  fotuid 
color  up  in  there.  The  Indians  didn't  care 
much  about  it.  But  after  Bob  told  them 
about  strikes  higher  up  in  the  country, 
these  Indians  and  Carmac  went  farther 
up  Bonanza.  They  all  claim  to  have 
found  the  first  gold  there.  Henderson 
would  not  let  them  stake  on  Gold  Bottom 
because  he  didn't  like  the  Indians,  so  they 
turned  back,  because  they  had  foimd  ten 
240 


DAWSON,  THE  GOLDEN  CITY 

cents  to  the  pan  on  Bonanza.  They 
found  more  gold  on  Bonanza,  and  so 
Carmac  staked  there  on  August  17,  1896, 
the  Discovery  claim  and  Number  One 
Below  Discovery,  each  500  feet  long,  up 
and  down  the  creek.  They  tell  me  that 
these  claims  ran  the  full  width  of  the 
valley  bottom  —  that  is,  from  base  to 
base  of  the  hill  on  either  side. 

"Then  some  Indians  staked  above  and 
below,  Tagish  Charley  on  Number  Two 
below,  and  Skookum  Jim  on  Nimiber 
One  above.  They  had  about  a  cartridge- 
ful  of  gold  when  they  got  down  to  the 
mouth  of  the  Klondike,  and  they  still 
thought  there  was  more  money  in  liunber 
than  in  mining. 

"Everybody  got  wind  of  it  now,  and 
there  were  a  lot  of  people  in  this  coimtry 
already,  before  the  Klondike  news  got 
out.  There  were  twenty-five  men  look- 
ing for  Henderson's  Creek,  and  about 
that  many  looking  for  the  Carmac 
claims. 

"So  Henderson  didn't  get  any  of  the 
rich  strike  on  Bonanza,  although  he  had 
told  Carmac  about  it.  He  always  said 
Carmac  ought  to  have  told  him,  so  he 
could  have  got  in  there,  too.  Henderson 
241 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

couldn't  get  out  to  Forty-Mile  in  time  to 
record  his  claim  on  Gold  Bottom,  imtil 
Andrew  Hunker  got  in  on  the  creek  below 
him,  and  he  recorded  his  Discovery  claim 
and  had  the  creek  named  after  him — 
Himker  Creek.  But  Henderson  had  cut 
a  blaze  on  a  tree  and  m.arked  this  creek 
as  Gold  Bottom  Creek  long  before  that. 

"So  they  gave  a  discovery  claim  to 
Carmac  on  Bonanza  Creek,  and  another 
on  Gold  Bottom  or  Hunker  Creek  to  this 
man  Hunker.  So  Henderson,  who  had 
been  in  here  two  years,  and  who  had  told 
everybody  about  what  he  had  found  and 
wanted  everybody  to  share  in  it,  got  only 
a  very  bad  claim,  after  all.     Hard  luck. 

"I  wish  I  could  talk  with  those  old- 
timers  and  the  Indians  who  were  first  in 
this  gold  country;  but  Mr.  Ogilvie  did 
talk  with  them  all,  and  I  think  what  he 
sets  down  is  perfectly  true. 

"What  I  was  rather  surprised  to  learn 
was  that  all  this  country  was  known  as  a 
gold  coimtry  so  long  before  the  Klondike 
was  heard  of.  Most  people  think  that 
the  Klondike  strike  brought  the  first 
stampedes  into  the  Yukon  Valley,  but 
that  is  not  the  case  at  all.  So  I  thought 
I  would  set  this  down,  to  have  it  straight 
242 


DAWSON,  THE  GOLDEN  CITY 

when  we  all  got  older.  As  time  goes  by 
these  things  seem  to  get  crooked,  and 
sometimes  men  get  credit  who  do  not 
deserve  it. 

"Well,  I  have  heard  a  good  many- 
stories  about  wild  times  in  Dawson,  but 
I  have  not  any  place  to  set  that  down 
here,  nor  to  tell  stories  about  getting 
rich  quick.  We  only  wanted  to  keep  track 
of  the  early  times  in  the  wild  country. 
So  I  guess  this  will  do. 

"W^ell,  here  we  go,  off  for  home!— On 
board  the  steamer  Nor  com,  bound  up  the 
Yukon.  Left  at  9  p.m.,  after  saying  good- 
by  to  all  our  friends  in  Dawson.  We 
liked  Dawson,  but  foimd  it  pretty  quiet. 

*^  Sunday,  August  lyth. — ^We  are  doing 
about  five  miles  an  hour.  Current  very- 
swift.  At  noon  saw  the  Stewart  valley. 
Smith's  store  on  the  bank.  Saw  some 
boats  stampeding  for  the  White  River 
strikes.  Passed  the  mouth  of  the  White 
River.  Saw  a  new  boat  full  of  men  turn- 
ing up  that  river  on  the  stampede.  It 
must  be  like  old  times.  Well,  all  right — 
we're  going  out. 

''Monday,  August  i8th. — Slow  plugging 
up  the  current.  Made  Selkirk,  an  old  trad- 
ing-post and  mining  hangout,  at  2  p.m. 
243 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

The  scenery  here  is  much  finer  than  on 
the  Mackenzie.  I  don't  know  if  tourists 
will  ever  come  on  any  of  these  rivers. 
It  goes  a  little  slow. 

"A  good  many  wood-yards  along  the 
banks  of  the  river.  Quite  a  business 
selling  wood  to  the  steamboats,  which 
btim  a  lot.  They  showed  us  the  line  where 
the  winter  dog-stages  carry  the  mail  to 
Dawson.  Some  one  showed  us  the  O'Brien 
cabin,  where  foiu*  miu-ders  were  com- 
mitted. One  white  man  and  three  Ind- 
ians were  hanged  for  it. 

''Tuesday,  August  iQth. — ^We  all  got 
up  pretty  early,  although  John  was 
sleepy  and  Jesse  a  little  cross.  I  told 
them  we  ought  to  see  the  boat  line  up 
through  the  Five-Finger  Rapids.  But, 
pshaw!  there  wasn't  much  about  it. 
We  could  run  these  rapids,  I  am  sure,  in 
our  canoe,  with  no  danger  at  all.  Of 
course,  going  up  the  current  is  stiff,  so 
at  the  bottom  of  the  chute  the  steamboat 
takes  on  a  wire  cable,  and  it  winds  around 
a  drtmi  with  a  donkey-engine,  and  that 
pulls  the  boat  up  the  rapids.  They  are 
not  much  like  some  of  the  rapids  we  have 
seen. 

"Well,    it's    twenty    years    since    the 
244 


DAWSON,  THE  GOLDEN  CITY 

Klondike  rush,  and  we've  been  over  a 
good  deal  of  the  country  that  the  old- 
timers  saw.  Here  we  come  to  White 
Horse,  and  there  we  shall  take  the  rail- 
road over  the  Skagway  Pass,  where  so 
many  men  had  such  awful  times  trying 
to  get  from  the  salt  water  into  the  Yiikon 
Valley. 

"I  don't  think  I'll  write  any  more 
notes,  because  when  you  get  to  a  railroad 
everybody  knows  about  it  all  anyhow. 
John  and  Jesse  and  I  feel  pretty  blue, 
after  all.  Our  trip  is  the  same  as  done 
when  we  get  to  W^hite  Horse,  and  we  are 
sorry.  When  we  once  know  we  can  get 
home  all  safe,  we  sort  of  feel  homesick  for 
the  rivers  and  moimtains,  too.  You  know 
how  that  is. 

"I  don't  know  that  we  would  want  to 
do  it  all  over  again,  but  we've  had  a  fine 
time.  I  think  John  and  Jesse  are  both  a 
little  taller.    Uncle  Dick  says  I  am,  too. 

"But  it  will  be  fine  to  get  home  again. 
Uncle  Dick  says  he  is  going  to  write  and 
telegraph  from  White  Horse  once  more. 
So  good-by  to  the  Yukon.  And  good-by 
to  the  Rat  and  the  Mackenzie,  too !  Fine 
doings!" 


XVII 

WHAT   UNCLE   DICK  THOUGHT 

OUR  party  of  explorers,  who  by  this  time 
felt  entirely  civilized,  went  about  the 
streets  of  White  Horse  with  a  certain  air  of 
superiority  over  the  individuals  who  had 
never  been  farther  north  than  this  railroad 
town.  They  were  the  heroes  of  the  hour, 
with  their  tales  of  the  Rat  Portage,  over 
which  no  party  had  come  in  in  recent  years, 
and  each  of  them  had  to  tell  to  many  listeners 
the  story  of  this  or  that  incident  of  the  long 
trail.  Old  graybearded  men  listened  with  re- 
spect to  what  these  young  boys  had  to  say, 
and  a  newspaper  man  was  very  glad  to  make 
a  copy  of  some  of  Rob's  careful  diary,  which 
he  now  began  to  value  more  and  more. 

All  too  soon  they  were  to  leave  this  place 
and  to  pass  up  over  practically  the  original 
Klondike  trail  which  came  from  the  salt 
water  over  the  White  Pass  and  down  the 
headwaters  of  the  Yukon  to  this  point.    They 

246 


WHAT  UNCLE  DICK  THOUGHT 

did  not  visit  the  once  famous  White  Horse 
Rapids,  where  so  many  of  the  boats  of  the 
Klondikers  came  to  grief,  but  declared  it 
would  only  bore  them,  since  they  had  seen 
waters  so  much  more  imposing!  The  local 
inhabitants  laughed  at  this,  but  admitted 
that  many  of  the  teeth  of  this  once  dangerous 
water  had  been  extracted  since  the  early 
days. 

As  Rob  had  said,  Uncle  Dick  took  time  here 
to  do  a  little  of  his  correspondence.  He  sent 
out  a  message  by  wire  once  more  to  the 
families  of  his  companions,  and  to  this  added 
a  letter  which  he  said  would  go  north  to 
Valdez  with  the  boys  themselves,  in  case  he 
himself  received  news  at  Skagway  which 
would  make  it  impossible  for  him  to  ac- 
company them  to  their  homes. 

One  letter  he  wrote  to  the  company  which 
had  sent  him  as  its  representative  into  this 
northern  country,  in  the  following  terms: 

"Gentlemen, — I  have  arrived  at  the 
head  of  the  rails  on  the  Yukon  to-day, 
completing  the  round  from  Edmonton  to 
White  Horse  safely  within  the  three 
months'  estimate  handed  you. 

"I  have  investigated  the  transporta- 
tion possibilities  in  much  of  this  upper 
17  247 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

country.  It  is  possible  that  a  railroad 
north  from  Athabasca  Landing  might  for 
a  time  prove  profitable.  I  do  not  myself 
believe  to  any  extent  in  the  agricultural 
possibilities  of  that  upper  coimtry.  A 
few  men  will  be  able  to  subsist  there. 
Some  grain  can  be  raised  in  many  of  the 
valleys  of  that  upper  cotmtry.  The 
seasons  are,  however,  so  short,  and  the 
difficulties  of  permanent  settlement  so 
many,  that  while  in  my  estimation  the 
railroad  would  be  a  benefit  for  a  time  to  a 
few  individuals,  it  would  not  be  a  prof- 
itable permanent  enterprise  far  to  the 
northward  of  its  present  terminus.  I 
regard  the  Peace  River  valley  as  about 
its  permanent  agricultural  north,  al- 
though many  traders  and  boomers  may 
dispute  that. 

"As  to  the  feasibility  of  a  railway  line 
connecting  the  Yukon  to  the  Mackenzie, 
I  can  see  no  reason  whatever  for  con- 
templating the  matter  seriously.  In  my 
passage  across  the  summit  on  the  Rat 
Portage  we  found  some  squared  timbers 
which  had  been  prepared  there  with  a 
view  to  laying  a  sort  of  tramway.  The 
idea  was  long  since  abandoned  by  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company,  which  once  pur- 
248 


WHAT  UNCLE  DICK  THOUGHT 

posed  it.  I  cannot  say  whether  or  not 
they  intended  to  use  steam  transport. 
Since  then  the  country  has  wholly  lapsed 
into  its  original  wild  and  bleak  character. 
It  is,  in  my  opinion,  and  will  and  should 
remain,  a  wilderness.  Its  resources  would 
not  in  any  wise  support  any  considerable 
transportation  enterprise  permanently. 

"The  com.panions  who  went  with  me 
on  this  trip  report  well  and  sound,  and  I 
commend  them  for  the  manner  in  which 
they  withstood  the  hardships,  at  times 
very  considerable. 

"My  subsequent  and  more  complete 
report  will  be  made  at  the  offices  of  the 
Company  at  a  later  date. 

"Respectfully  submitted. 

"Richard  McIntyre." 

The  second  letter  was  addressed  to  the 
mother  of  one  of  our  young  adventurers,  and 
in  this  Uncle  Dick  wrote  in  rather  less  formal 
fashion : 

"Dear  Sister, — Here  we  are  at  the 
railroad,  and  within  a  couple  of  hours  will 
be  steaming  out  across  the  mountains  for 
Skagway.  All  safe  and  soimd.  Never 
saw  boys  eat  the  way  these  do,  and  can- 
249 


YOUNG  ALASKANS  IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 

not  say  whether  or  not  we  will  have 
enough  money  to  get  them  home. 

"Nothing  much  has  happened  since 
we  left,  as  the  cow-puncher  said  when  he 
killed  the  ranch-manager  in  the  owner's 
absence.  We  have  made  our  trip  around 
in  two  or  three  days'  less  time  than  I  had 
estimated,  but,  looking  back  over  it,  I 
cannot  say  just  how  it  all  happened.  We 
certainly  have  been  busy  traveling.  In 
ninety  days  we  will  have  finished  what  is 
estimated  to  be  5,280  miles,  under  all 
sorts  of  transport — steam,  paddle,  sail, 
and  good  old  North  American  foot- 
work. 

"The boys  are  all  safe  and  soimd,  bigger 
and  better  than  when  I  took  them  over, 
so  I  don't  see  what  you  can  say  against 
your  erring  brother  after  this. 

"How  did  the  youngsters  behave? 
Well,  I'll  tell  you  when  I  see  you.  They 
were  fine,  and  that's  all  about  it.  They 
send  their  love,  and  so  do  I,  and  some  or 
all  of  us  will  see  you  with  the  first  boat 
north  from  Skagway.  Rob  has  a  full 
diary,  and  John  a  good  sketch  map,  so 
they'll  be  loaded  for  you  all  right. 

"Do  I  renew  my  promise  never  to  take 
them  on  another  trip?  Of  course  I  re- 
250 


WHAT  UNCLE  DICK  THOUGHT 

member  that  promise,  but  can  I  manage 
to  keep  it,  now  that  these  chaps  are  such 
good  travelers?  I  don't  know.  Well,  sup- 
pose we  talk  that  over  when  we  meet 
again? 

"From  your  affectionate  brother 

"Dick." 


THE  END 


Hough, K, 


^o^^r   Alaskans  in  th<i 


^ar  North. 


m6()828 


H838 

-yo — 


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